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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23057773">Apothic Dark</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/HuggableSword/pseuds/HuggableSword'>HuggableSword</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dragon Age - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>BAMF Inquisitor, Blind Character, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/F, F/M, Language, Modern Character in Thedas, Modern Girl in Thedas, Multi, Not A Fix-It, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, References to Depression, The MC is kind of an ass, Time Skips, Violence, Warden in Dragon Age: Inquisition, she gets better</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 06:55:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>47,983</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23057773</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/HuggableSword/pseuds/HuggableSword</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Katherine is your average, run of the mill eighteen-year-old. She likes horses, hates homework, and plays video games in her spare time. In fact, she's about halfway through her first playthrough of Dragon Age 2, after a very long love affair with the Dragon Age: Origins. The third game, Inquisition, is next on her to-play list.</p><p>When she suddenly finds herself transported to Thedas at the start of the Origins timeline, her average, run of the mill life suddenly takes a turn for the worse. Then she kills the Archdemon, gets stuck in the fade for ten years, and wakes up in a dungeon with a weird glowing mark on her hand. And this time, she has no idea what's going on.</p><p>MGiT, with a heavy dose of Warden-as-Inquisitor. Takes place largely in Inquisition, but there will be gratuitous flashbacks to Origins events.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Leliana/Female Warden (Dragon Age), Other Relationship Tags to Be Added</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>170</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>211</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Once We Were</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <h3>9:31 Dragon<br/>
Denerim Rooftops</h3><p>The archdemon hauled itself to its feet. Its body was ravaged and broken, but its bloodshot eyes pinned her from across the rooftop, and its claws scraped against the shattered stone. The dragon’s serpentine pupils were defiant, full of rage and fury and sickness; she could feel the taint that tortured it, a beacon of black against the inside of her eyelids. It threw back its head and roared, and a cold tendril of ice lodged itself in Kat's spine. But fear was so familiar to her by now that she automatically shoved it aside, blocking it off to deal with...later.</p><p>Her hands shook as she fumbled into her pouch, pulling out one of her last healing potions and tossing the vial back with a determined grimace. The lukewarm herbal concoction helped, but not much. Her entire body hurt. Pain sang in her blood, as familiar as the siren song of the Blight itself. She felt like she'd been fighting for hours – because oh, wait, she had been. From the gates to the market to the alienage, every step forward had been hard-fought in blood and sweat. And now... it was all almost, finally, blessedly, over.</p><p>Blood poured in a slow but steady stream from a deep gash in her shoulder, and a trail of crimson dripped off of her fingers. Her muscles were sore, her legs hurt, and a deep dent in her chest plate prevented her from taking a full breath. She grit her teeth, clenching her fists against the missing weight of her daggers. Bits of her armor had fallen off in the battle, and she had lost her weapons somewhere in the fray. She was fairly certain she'd done something unsavory to her knee, too; it made a disgusting crunching noise whenever she tried to put too much weight on it.</p><p>The game had glossed over that part. But then, the game had glossed over a lot of things. Kat had stopped taking her playthroughs as gospel a long time ago.</p><p>Her agony was second only to the bone-deep weariness that had settled in her limbs, and every heaving breath was a struggle against her own body. She was so <em> tired </em>.</p><p>But the archdemon still lived - and though she’d kill for an espresso and a deep tissue massage right about now, luxury of any variety was a distant pipe dream.The fight wasn't over. Not yet. And she knew without a shadow of a doubt that if she hesitated – or worse, if she failed – that Alastair would try to take her place. The sound of hurried footsteps coming up the steps behind her reminded her that she'd have an audience soon, and she was wasting time.</p><p>So she didn't hesitate.</p><p>With a surge of effort, Kat rushed the blighted dragon. She snatched a discarded sword from a fallen soldier nearby, and her momentum carried her forward. The archdemon threw back its head and shrieked, its teeth snapping at the air as it hauled its body around to face her. Its wings were broken, but the beast reared up on its hind legs as Kat darted in close. She had never been good with swords, but she'd be damned if she let that stop her now.</p><p>With a roar, she dodged just as the dragon's tail lashed out from the side, trying to sweep her off of her feet. She struck at the scaled appendage, and she felt the sword skitter over the armored hide just as archdemon fell back onto its forelimbs and lunged towards her. Kat barely managed to sidestep its gaping jaws, calling on all of her rogue training to avoid the dragon's vicious teeth. She switched her grip and ducked in towards the archdemon's body, hauling the sword back to deal the final blow on the exposed length of the creature's neck.</p><p>The blade sank into flesh – but not before the archdemon's claws gouged a score of lines across the meat of her face. Blood and darkness filled her vision, and Kat screamed in pain. Her voice was lost in the archdemon's death throes, but her injuries were suddenly forgotten as liquid fire filled her veins. Every nerve keened with pain, a high-pitched funeral dirge that settled in the back of her teeth. <em> It hurts. Oh god, Maker, someone, it hurts. </em> Her hands were fastened onto the hilt of the sword, her fingers locked in place around the grip. Agony took the place of everything she had ever known. She felt like she was being ripped apart.</p><p>For a strange, disjointed moment, Kat thought she heard Morrigan's voice somewhere in the chaos. And in the very next instant, the world exploded - and she thought nothing at all.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Hello and welcome, all! This is my first fanfic, and boy is it a doozy. Kudos, comments, and feedback are forever appreciated! Let's see where the road leads us, yes? First chapter is fairly brief, but Chapter 2 will be coming soon!</p><p>I'm also looking for a beta reader or two, so if you're interested, please let me know!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. You, me, and us</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <h3>9:31 Dragon (?)<br/>???</h3><p>She woke to pain and pressure - and the quiet prelude of a pianoforte in the background.</p><p>Slowly, in murky stages, her consciousness fought its way back to her. Awareness faded in and out with every beat of her protesting heart; she felt drugged, or drunk, but the endless pallor of pain overtook everything else. She was only dimly cognizant of the fact that she was sprawled across the ground, her body contorted uncomfortably across the frigid, unforgiving earth. A high pitched whine crawled its way out of her throat before she could choke it back.</p><p>Every cell in her body burned. Every breath hurt. She felt bruised, broken, tattered and torn and… W<em> hy wasn’t she dead? </em> </p><p>She groaned, and tried to open her eyes, but couldn’t. Her face was a sheet of red hot pain, and her eyelids were caked shut by...something. With a trembling hand she tried to wipe her vision clear, but froze as soon as her fingertips touched her face. The texture of her skin was all wrong; it felt tacky and crumbling and - </p><p>Memory drew up against the mental wall of mounting panic. She suddenly remembered the last few moments of her battle with the Archdemon, the flash of searing pain as claws carved channels through her flesh. A wave of nausea rushed over her, and as she tried to catch her suddenly racing breath, she made a point to take stock of her condition to give herself something else to focus on.</p><p>One - there was a seductive numb feeling spreading through her fingertips and scalp. Two - her eyes were glued shut, and her face hurt so badly that she could hardly think. Three - a persistent pressure leaned against the inside of her skull, a mounting ache compounded by the painfully jarring sensation of an ice pick being slammed into the space behind her eyeballs. Four - her armor was digging into her ribs, and whatever pieces had managed to survive the battle were probably now broken beyond repair. Five - she was still bleeding from the wound on her shoulder, and her knee hurt like a bitch. Six - Oh, fuck it, there was too much wrong with her to list all of it, and she couldn’t focus beyond her gradually worsening headache. </p><p>With a slow but practiced motion, she reached down to her side, pulled out her very last health potion, and brought it up to her lips. She swallowed as much of the liquid as she could, given that she was still laying down, and her hands were shaking hard enough to tremble against the glass vial. </p><p>Immediately, she felt better. As the potion began to work its magic, the searing pain along her shoulder and face subsided to a warm tingling, and the sharper pain plaguing her knee settled into a quiet ache. Her head wasn’t any better, though. And her whole body felt almost...wrong, somehow, as though someone had taken all of the pieces of her and put them back together with only a vague idea of where all the important bits belonged. She bit back another whimper as she let her arm fall back to her side, and a vicious throb of pain speared through her head as her grip loosened on the flask.</p><p>The delicate notes of the piano faded, and the disjointed song coming to a destitute end as she panted harshly through her nose, trying to stay afloat from the creeping darkness that threatened to drag her back into unconsciousness. She had no idea where she was. She had no idea what had happened. Where was Alistair? Leliana? Hell, she’d settle for seeing <em> Oghren </em>right about now.  If she wasn’t dead, then she needed to find them.</p><p>Just as she had steeled herself to try and crawl upright, a quiet growl made her tense. Kat froze, suddenly very much aware that she was <em> not alone. </em></p><p><em> ‘Remain still.’ </em>The thought - feeling? - clawed its way to the forefront of her thoughts. She nearly wept, her thoughts delirious with pain. Great. Now she was hearing voices.</p><p><em> ‘Not voices. Voice. One. Mine. Ours.’  </em> The 'voice' was more like pictures, emotions, than actual words. They rumbled against her mind, a sandpaper whisper that she couldn’t ignore. It was attached to something so large, so alien and <em> other </em>, that she automatically quailed beneath the weight of its regard. </p><p>She bit her tongue - a brighter spark of pain that momentarily drowned out the others. A flash of irritation bloomed from the voiceless <em> Other - </em>before the numb feeling that washed across her fingertips swept downward to encompass her tongue, too. The brief pain vanished.</p><p>She flinched, but forced herself to lay still, even though she suddenly felt very vulnerable. “Are you - “ Her voice was strangled, rough from...screaming? Crying? Not-dying? She had to cough to clear her throat, and the jarring motion did awful things to her ribs and lungs. She had to take a deeper breath just to settle her thoughts. “Are you healing me?”</p><p>‘ <em> No.’ </em>  Swift denial. Amusement. Affront.</p><p>She paused. That business with her tongue had certainly <em> felt </em> like healing - and she wasn’t in nearly as much pain as she had been. The difference was more than the single potion could account for. On the other hand, her headache seemed to be getting worse by the moment. Kat took yet another deep, steadying breath. “Uh. Okay. Then...Who are you? What <em> are </em>you doing, exactly?”</p><p>‘<em> Sealing.’ </em></p><p>She paused. Sealing. Like, sealing her wounds? What the bloody hell was the difference - </p><p>
  <em> ‘Cannot renew. Not same. Changed. Must remake to make fit.’ </em>
</p><p>She frowned. That sounded….bad. Remaking was bad, right? And what did the rest of it mean? She hadn’t missed the fact that her silent companion hadn’t answered her first question - she had no idea who she was ‘talking’ to. Or where she was, even. </p><p>A spike of pressure leaned against her temple. The sound of the piano suddenly returned. It was soothing, in a way; the notes drifted, longing and lonely and seductive. She found herself relaxing into the music, hoping that it might soothe her pounding migraine - but instead, she felt as though her brain was being gradually squeezed through a sieve. Her body felt almost light in comparison, though she still hadn’t managed to open her eyes to orient herself in space.</p><p>With a wince of effort, she brought her hand back up to her face. Refusing to be turned aside by the numbness in her fingers and the tactilely disgusting crust of what she could only assume to be dried blood, she rubbed at her sealed eyelids. Her fingertips felt strange - misshapen - against her gore-splattered skin, but she ignored the feeling, and focused on peeling her eyelids apart. After a long, dizzying moment, she managed to blink. She could feel her eyelashes flutter against her cheek, could feel the tiny muscles working at the corner of her eyes. After a moment, she blinked again - and swallowed.The piano music got louder. The <em> Other </em>was listening.</p><p>“I can’t see anything.” She hated how small her voice sounded.</p><p>Silence. And then, almost reluctantly - a flicker of confirmation.</p><p>“Oh.” She lay in silence for a moment, biting her lip. “Can you...can you fix it?”</p><p><em> ‘No.’ </em>Denial. Regret. </p><p>She inhaled. “Oh.” She blinked rapidly, as though she might be able to clear the dark haze from her vision.She tried moving her hand in front of her face, flexing her fingers and moving her arm around as though she might be able to bring it all into focus - but all she could make out was a dark, blurry shadow moving against a field of slightly lighter shadows. It hurt, even trying to focus her eyes that much. She slumped - and winced at the renewal of her headache.</p><p>“Fine. Alright. Okay.” She tried to settle her mounting panic, forcing her arms beneath her as she leveraged herself into a sitting position. The blood rushed from her head as she heaved herself upright, but she managed to catch herself before she toppled over again. She was sure that she looked like death warmed over, if how she felt was any indication. But since she couldn't <em> see </em>, there was no way for her to confirm one way or another.</p><p>She sighed, and then grit her teeth. Her fingertips hesitated, but then traced lightly over the thick, raised lines of new scar tissue that trailed across her face. A smaller line, like an afterthought, dragged at an angle part ways across her forehead, while a thicker talon had cut a broader stroke in an almost perfectly straight line across her eyes and nose. The thicker scar’s bottom edge marched in a defiant path across her nose bridge, and she pressed her fingers into the small new divot the line had taken from the arch.</p><p><em> Like a default Hawke that got a little too slaphappy with the war paint </em>, she thought dizzily.</p><p>The Archdemon must have caught her with the edge of a single claw. Still, with how large the damn dragon had been, she was lucky she still had eyes at all.</p><p>She let her fingers leave her face, moving upwards. Her hair had come loose from its ponytail at some point, and fell in blood-matted locks down her shoulders. She huffed, feeling across the planes of her armor, making a note of which pieces she’d lost. One of her pauldrons was missing, as was her left vambrace. Her daggers were gone, of course, but her hands found the hilt of the hilt of the sword on the ground nearby, and she still had a dirk tucked into her boot.</p><p>Another surge of the piano - where <em> was </em>that coming from? - precipitated another pounding refrain in her head. She clutched her temples and curled in on herself as the pain reached a pulsing crescendo, her useless eyes screwed shut.</p><p>“While you’re busy sealing things, is there anything you could do about this migraine?” Her voice was dry, sardonic. She didn’t actually expect her mystery spirit-savior to help her any more than it already had. She had a sneaking suspicion that the <em> Other </em> was the reason she had shiny new scars instead of raw hamburger for a face. It would be too much to ask that it would also magic her headache away, too. Surely it was too busy being cryptic and disembodied and terrifying -</p><p>
  <em> ‘Let me in.’ </em>
</p><p>She went still. Oh no, no no. Nothing good ever came from hearing <em> that </em>. Except maybe in like, sexy circumstances, but Kat was not feeling particularly amorous at the moment. She drew herself up, her voice rising. “You - “</p><p>‘<em> Us. Mine. Ours.’ </em></p><p>A comparatively gentle nudge of sentience against her thoughts turned into an almost seductive caress. Kat felt goosebumps prickle up her arms as realization set in. The pounding in her head wasn’t just a migraine - some<em> thing </em>was trying to squish itself into her. Her mind, her consciousness, whatever - it was being systematically eaten away, crushed beneath the weight of….whatever she was talking to.</p><p>A demon? Kat drew the longsword closer, her fingers digging into the grip. No, thank you. A demon could get right the hell out. She hadn’t survived slaying the Archdemon just to turn into an abomination, thank you very much.</p><p><em> ‘Already tied. Connected. Can’t leave-can’t stay-trapped.’ </em>The voice became more frantic, less coherent, sending pulses of imagery and emotion too fast for her to understand. A bone deep sorrow became the fragment of ageless memory, the rage of an eternity’s confinement battering against her thoughts.</p><p>She flinched, and she brought the sword into an automatic guard position in front of her. Though she was in far less pain than she had been when she'd woken up, the movement still made her muscles scream. “I don’t understand,” she decried.</p><p>A flicker of frustration, and another pulse of pain stabbed into her skull. She winced, trying to push back against the force, to rally against the pain, but another wave of impressions distracted her.</p><p>
  <em> ‘Soul-same. Once-two-now-one. Connected. Mine, fading. Yours, fading. Only together, exist. Remake. New life, one soul.’ </em>
</p><p>A breath. She was silent, trying to piece the puzzle together. They were the same? They could only exist together? It sounded exactly like the shit a demon would try to pull. ‘You and I are the same, give in to the dark side, blah blah…’ It was all cliche drivel, and she wanted nothing to do with it. But the bits about fading, remaking….That was new. And it tickled at the base of her skull, poking at a repressed memory. Kat wracked her brain, running through all of the lore in her head, trying to understand what was going on. And then a lightbulb suddenly burst into brilliant light, and - <em> oh, fuckkkk.  </em></p><p>
  <em> “The essence of the beast will pass through the taint to the nearest darkspawn and will be reborn anew in that body. The dragon is thus all but immortal. But if the Archdemon is slain by a Grey Warden...it’s essence travels to the Grey Warden, instead.” </em>
</p><p>The quote was memorable; she’d heard it a good handful of times. It was why the Grey Wardens were so important, why their Order was granted so much respect - only a Grey Warden could end the Blight. But the implications now, after what she’d done, the huge alien presence that pressed against the inside of her head...</p><p>She lurched to her feet, ignoring the pain as she shook her head violently. “No, no! I was supposed to <em> die. </em>This isn’t how the story goes.“ Her breath came hard and fast, and all tingling and scars and missing armor were forgotten as she struggled against mounting hysteria. This wasn't possible in the game, was it? She hadn't done that sketchy ritual for Morrigan! She hadn’t let Alistair take the final blow! She shouldn't be alive, let alone....Oh, fuck, fuck. </p><p>She was talking to the <em> Archdemon </em>. </p><p>God, how badly had she fucked up the game to have gotten this ending? Was it even an ending? She was fairly certain Bioware hadn’t written anything like this into Dragon Age’s script. This was, yet again, proof that her presence had indisputably altered the whole world state.</p><p>The <em> Other </em> - the <em> Archdemon </em>- paused in the wake of her panic. The pain in her head didn’t abate, but now that she was engaged in actual conversation with her disembodied healer, she felt as though the headache and the Archdemon were two separate things. One larger, outside force was trying to squash her, while the other, inside force waited for...what, permission? </p><p>
  <em> ‘Do you want to die?’ </em>
</p><p>The dragon’s voice offered an almost tentative inquiry, less disjointed than the rest. Kat sighed...and then shook her head. It promptly threatened to fall off her shoulders, and she froze, loosening her grip on the sword so that she could press a fist into her temple. “No. I’ve never... <em> wanted </em> to die. I just didn’t want anyone else to get hurt,” she whispered.She clenched her teeth, and bit out the words.  “I’m not even supposed to <em> be </em> here. I’m not from this world, I’m not supposed to be the Warden! But...but it’s all <em> real </em> and everyone - Morrigan, Alistair, Leliana - they’re all <em> alive. </em>I couldn’t...I couldn’t let anyone else sacrifice themselves. They all deserve a chance to live out their lives. So...so if someone had to go, it should be me, right? If I’m the one who dies, then the story can go on like it was supposed to.”</p><p>She sucked in a breath, and realized that she was crying. And she <em> hated </em>it. Tears slid down her face, mingling with the blood and gore that surely still stained it. She hiccuped, the fingernails of her free hand digging into her elbow as she held herself, as she tried not to fade beneath the crushing pressure of her headache. “But now, what? I don’t need to die, but I merge with the Archdemon instead? Is that what you’re saying?”</p><p>
  <em> ‘Yes.’ </em>
</p><p>Defiance flickered, fanning the flames of a sudden flash of temper. She snarled. “You can go fuck yourself. I won’t be a darkspawn. You and your 'essence' or whatever can suck a -”</p><p><em> ‘No. No taint. No me. No you. Us.’  </em>The presence rushed to clarify, a stern admonishment against her mounting desperation. Kat let out a breath, a rush of naked relief expelling the tension in her shoulders, despite all common sense. It could be lying, after all. She knew next to nothing but a few codex entries worth of lore on Archdemons, all of that was seriously skewed in favor of the prevalent idea that they were blighted and evil. But when the overbearing presence spoke again, she tried to focus on its words.</p><p><em> ‘Fade-touched. Fade-broken. Together, Fade-made.’ </em>The ghostly sensation of claws crawled against the corners of her mind, somehow more gentle than the headache itself.</p><p>Right. Because that made everything so much more clear. Kat frowned as she tried to work through it, as she struggled to find meaning amidst her mind’s screaming kaleidoscope of confusion. She knew, from Morrigan and Wynne and the nightmare of Kinloch Hold, that the Fade didn’t like her. Hell, she hadn’t even been able to dream since she got to Thedas. She had always assumed it was because she was from Earth; she didn’t have the right connection, or whatever. Being in the Fade for any length of time had always been murder on her head, though nothing quite as bad as what she was going through right now. But was that what the Archdemon meant about being ‘Fade-broken’? Which would mean ‘Fade-touched’ was Urthemiel itself? Okay, sure. She remembered seeing some lore about the Old Gods originally teaching magic to the people of Thedas, so maybe it made sense that they had a stronger connection to the Fade than ordinary people.</p><p>The voice called her back to the present. The herculean presence shifted nearer, as if it could sense her thoughts. ‘<em> Together, Fade-made.’ </em> It repeated. <em> ‘Apart, death. The Void will claim what the Fade cannot.’ </em></p><p>Okay, well that part was pretty clear. Kat stiffened, brushing the tears from her face. She kept her eyes closed; it was easier than trying to make out shadows in the sea of other shadows.</p><p><em> ‘Choice. Always.’  </em>The voice was softer now. She could sense...reluctance? A sense of inevitability? The Archdemon - well, Urthemiel, she supposed, because if she was going to consider ‘merging’ with anything then she should probably use its name - seemed just as cautious as she did.</p><p>But neither of them wanted to die.</p><p>She steeled her spine. There was only a thread of herself left, backed against the wall of her own mind. The thread was fraying, ready to snap, and the sum of her whole life was crushed beneath the force of the Fade. She felt something wet touch her lips, and realized that her nose was bleeding.</p><p>The Fade, she decided, was stupid.<br/><br/>She grit her teeth. “What’s that mean, then? The...remaking.” Deathly alternative or not, she wasn’t going to jump into this thing blind. She held on for a few moments more, clawing against the pounding ache in her temples, the taste of blood in her mouth, the rising ringing in her ears. “Are you just going to be like, living in my head from now on, or…?” Oh god. What if it was the other way around? What if she was going to be trapped in a dragon body?</p><p>Urthemiel paused, but Kat could feel its flicker of frustration at its inability to communicate. Or, perhaps, it was simply getting tired of repeating itself. Or maybe it just found her thoughts to be ridiculous and childish. <em> ‘No. Together. Us. Mine. Yours. Same body, same mind. Both alive, both changed, both free.’ </em> A muted pulse of uncertainty <em> . </em> The Archdemon’s caution reared its head again. But then - <em> ‘I do not want to die, either.’ </em></p><p>Kat sighed - and then, dropping her sword to her side, she nodded decisively. She, too, refused to die here. Not when she had already survived, despite all odds, for so long - not when she had a chance to actually <em> live </em> . Even if that life was changed, <em> remade </em>, she wasn't stupid enough to squander the chance. “Fine.” The word fell from her lips like broken glass, fragile but dangerous. </p><p>Urthemiel's massive, powerful presence loomed closer. She still wasn’t sure where she was, or what had happened after the battle on the rooftop. But the Archdemon’s soul leaned over her, drawing her into itself. Bits of <em> Other </em> seeped inside of her, filling in all the cracks, shoring up all the broken pieces. And it <em> burned </em>.</p><p>She screamed.</p><p>In the instant before the pain washed everything away, Kat had a moment to appreciate the sudden cessation of her headache. But as agony continued to bloom across the whole of her body, the rising refrain of the piano drowned out everything else.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who has already left kudos and comments on my very first chapter! You have no idea how absolutely wonderful that is for me. I welcome all feedback and suggestions, so please don't hesitate to reach out if you'd like to talk about Apothic in any way!</p><p>I have no beta for this fic as of yet, so any mistakes, typos, or shoddy writing is entirely my own fault.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. The Beginning</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <h3>April 10th, 2018<br/>Seattle, Washington </h3><p>“Yesss, Isabela, get itttt!” </p><p>Kat’s crow of victory - and subsequent cackle - preceded the romantic cutscene starring her favorite DA2 companion. She smirked at the screen as the beautifully rendered Rivaini pirate leaped on top of her default Warrior Hawke, both characters shedding daggers and clothing as they stumbled into the pixelated bedroom. </p><p>She was still smiling as she chuckled through the subsequent dialogue choices. This was her - much delayed - first playthrough of Dragon Age 2. Alhough she had a few problems with the scope of the game (seriously, after giving her the entire map of Ferelden to explore in Origins, Bioware expected her to be happy being limited to Kirkwall?) overall, she was really enjoying the story and the mechanics. The graphics were definitely improved, at least, and she loved her companions. She’d shed a single, bitter tear when she’d found out that she couldn’t romance Varric, but wooing Isabela hadn’t been disappointing, either. If this was only the second game, she couldn’t wait to finish it and start Inquisition. </p><p>With a glance at the clock, Kat bit out a muffled curse. “Shit! It’s that late already?” The digital display read 1:04am. With a forlorn look at the TV screen, Kat quickly saved her game and shut off her PlayStation. She had school first thing in the morning, a fencing tournament in the afternoon, and she’d be getting less than six hours of sleep - assuming that she didn’t have any nightmares tonight. </p><p>She’d need a double shot of espresso just to make it worth hauling herself out of bed in the morning.<br/><br/>Setting her controller on the nearby ottoman, Kat stood up and started to get ready for bed. Changing into a comfy shirt and shorts, brushing her teeth, and running a comb through her hair took only a handful of minutes, and soon enough she had turned off the lights and had flopped down under the sheets of her mattress. The house was quiet; her mom had gone to bed a long time ago, and her dad was still away on a business trip.</p><p>Kat closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep, hoping that her dreams would take pity on her and let her get some actual shut-eye tonight.</p><p> </p><h3>9:30 Dragon<br/>Denerim Back Streets </h3><p>Bright sunlight burned through her eyelids. Kat groaned, and rolled over in bed - except, she realized, she wasn’t in bed. She was laying on something hard and extremely uncomfortable, and she could hear the quiet murmur of a distant crowd. City sounds. Had her mom turned on the TV? She frowned, blinking her eyes open, and she frowned up at the clear blue sky. </p><p>
  <em> Wait. That’s not right.  </em>
</p><p>Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, Kat sat up. She was still wearing her T-shirt and shorts, but her bedroom was nowhere to be seen. She was outside, curled against the side of a building. The ground underneath her was hard-packed earth, and there was a suspiciously putrid puddle of liquid a handspan from her hip. She edged away from it, and her brow furrowed as she looked around, trying to figure out where she was.</p><p><em> Why the fuck was I sleeping in an alley? </em>Kat mused.</p><p>She stood up, wrinkling her nose as she noticed the smell. Rotting food, unwashed bodies, and undisguised sewage mingled to create a disgusting conflux that assaulted her nose. Kat brought her shirt up over her mouth to try and help filter the smell, but after a moment, she let it fall again. The thin layer of polyester and cotton wasn’t helping.</p><p>She didn’t recognize her surroundings, so she walked towards the end of the alleyway, her bare feet carefully skirting the refuse and the uneven divots in the ground. She was already operating under the assumption that she was dreaming. It was pretty par for the course, honestly; her nightmares usually started off pretty innocuous...right up until they shifted into typical horror scenarios. Monsters and demons and and terrifying, formless shadows had plagued her dreams for as long as she could remember. At least twice a week, she woke up screaming, and no amount of medication had ever managed to give her a full week of dreamless sleep. At this point, she'd accepted the reoccurring night terrors as a fact of life.</p><p>Not for the first time, she wished that she dreamed less vividly. She could really do without the technicolor recreation of waste squelching between her toes, thank you very much.</p><p>Surreptitiously rubbing her foot against a relatively clean patch on the ground to scrape the I’m-not-thinking-about-whatever-that-was off of it, Kat paused at the end of the alley. The narrow avenue between the rough stone buildings opened up into a huge….market? There were certainly a lot of ramshackle stalls set up near the center of the square, and what looked like more established shopfronts facing into the area. Shopkeepers were standing in front of their goods, hawking their wares in loud, boisterous voices, trying to entice shoppers to browse their stocks - which ranged from fresh vegetables to used armor.</p><p>She blinked, a bit nonplussed as she watched the crowd go by, people stopping to chat, browse the stalls, and conduct business. Then she saw a few people with pointy ears, and one or two folks who were squat and stout and bearded. No one seemed to be paying them any mind, but Kat stared, fascinated. <em> Elves and dwarves. Right. Of course. Why not? </em></p><p>A sense of familiarity overcame her, and Kat grinned.</p><p>Trust her brain to bring her to Denerim. It was official now, she had officially played too much Dragon Age. Weird that it wasn't Kirkwall she was dreaming about, given her recent obsession with DA2, but the discrepancy didn't bother her. Why should it? This was a dream. Kat watched with a bemused expression, still hugging the corner of the building, as the crowds of NPCs milled back and forth. She almost forgot about the smell as she took in the sights. Denerim was much larger than Origins had depicted. The market alone was huge, and the sprawl of the homes and shops was far beyond what Origins had implied. She could see the spires of Denerim castle looming over the rooftops.</p><p>“Wow, okay, this is new. Go me. Way to nail the details,” Kat murmured, unable to kick the smile off of her face. Maybe she’d have a few minutes to enjoy the dream before the scary bits started. </p><p>“Do ya’ talk to yourself often, girlie?” an accented voice questioned.</p><p>Kat bit back a shriek. She whirled around, reflexively backing up a few paces from the person who’d managed to sneak up behind her. A swarthy man grinned at her, his eyes unrepentant and irreverent. He had short dark hair and a heavy five-o-clock shadow; his leathers were a patchwork of materials and widely divergent in quality, but they seemed functional enough. His outfit was certainly lighter and more makeshift than the heavy plate she would expect from a guard or a templar. That fact, and the two daggers arching over his shoulders, marked him as a rogue more surely than anything else.</p><p>Kat thought he looked familiar, but she couldn’t place his face. </p><p>“Uh...hi?” she tried. She felt suddenly very underdressed in her thin cotton shirt and pajama shorts, and was knocked slightly off-kilter by the fact that someone was actually <em> speaking </em> to her. Her dreams didn’t usually come with real people in them, let alone ones that talked to her. She crossed her arms in front of her chest defensively, acutely aware of the fact that she wasn't wearing a bra.</p><p>The man shifted, eyeing her speculatively. He leaned backwards, his thumbs hooked into his belt as he looked her up and down. “You alright there, missy? You lose your boots?” Kat frowned at him, glancing down at her bare feet; the man laughed, a short, loud bark that made Kat flinch. </p><p>“I’ve seen more clothes on women at the Pearl,” he said. There was a small pause as the stranger’s smile faded. "You ain’t in trouble with the law or nothin’, are ya’?”</p><p>Kat shook her head. “No, nothing...nothing like that.” She sighed, and flapped her hands at him. <em> “ </em>I’m just dreaming. I’ll wake up in a minute.”</p><p>The man gave her a funny look, his eyebrows lifting towards his forehead. “If this is what you dream about, kid, I feel sorry for ya'. You sure you’re alright?”<br/><br/>Kat grinned. “I’m fine! This is pretty neat, actually. My dreams usually aren’t this...involved.”<br/><br/>The man blinked, his eyes searching Kat’s face. Whatever he was looking for, he didn’t seem to find.  “Look, it probably ain’t any of my business, but it’s not safe for you to be hangin’ out around the back streets lookin’ like that. You got somewhere you need to be? You want me to take you to the Chantry, or the healer’s, or somethin’?”</p><p>“No no, I’m good,” Kat assured him. She tugged at her shorts, tilting her head as she considered the stranger. He was so familiar, if she could just…</p><p>“I’m Katherine,” she finally blurted out, unable to take the mystery any more. “Who are you?”</p><p>“‘Name’s Daveth,” the man smirked. “Nice to meet you, miss Katherine.”</p><p>“Kat’s fine,” she muttered absently, her brow furrowed. Daveth. The name plucked at her memories, and blossomed into fullblown recognition. The cutpurse from Denerim, the failed Grey Warden candidate, <em> that </em> Daveth? It had been a while - about seventy hours of game time, to be exact - since she'd heard the name, which explained her confusion. She almost laughed, giddy with the realization. <em> Damn, brain, we're really farming the weeds here. </em> <em><br/></em><br/>Out of all the characters in Dragon Age to have a dream about, hers featured <em> Daveth</em>?</p><p>“Cat? I would’a thought maybe ‘Mouse’, instead,” the rogue chuckled, unaware of the thoughts circling through Kat’s head.</p><p>Before Kat could reply, the sound of footsteps and jangling platemail snapped her attention back towards the shadows of the alley. Daveth had already turned around, daggers in his hands. Kat blinked - she hadn’t even seen him draw them.</p><p>Two figures in full plate rounded the corner at the opposite end of the alleyway. Their metal helmets gleamed in the sun, and one stopped to point a sword in their direction.</p><p>“Daveth! We know you’re there, you greasy weasel. You are under arrest -”<br/><br/>“Oops. Well, nice chat and all, but I gotta run now Kitty,” Daveth muttered. He sheathed his daggers in a single practiced motion, but Kat’s hand shot out to grab his shoulder before he could dart off.<br/><br/>“Wait! What about me?” she cried. This was a dream, sure, but a mad dash through the streets of Denerim hardly sounded like her idea of a good time. Neither did getting run over by angry guardsmen, though, so...</p><p>Daveth cursed. He appeared to war with himself for a moment, standing there indecisively - but the guards started forward. With a sudden jerk, Daveth grabbed her elbow and hurried her along beside him. “Keep up then!” he huffed, and then he took off running.<br/><br/>The rogue tossed something on the ground behind them as he tugged her along into the main streets. Kat glanced over her shoulder her in time to see a cloud of black smoke envelop the two guardsmen. The warriors stumbled into it with loud, inarticulate curses, and Kat couldn’t help but grin to see the telltale stealth skill in action. Her heart pounded with adrenaline and excitement even as Daveth’s hand on her arm pulled her roughly along behind him.<br/><br/>They burst out into the main thoroughfare. Shocked gasps and even a shriek or two followed them as they ran, but Daveth didn’t pause. He led Kat through the edge of the market, and then down another side alley. The back roads were a maze of interconnected corners and blind avenues, and Daveth navigated them with the ease of long practice.<br/><br/>Kat laughed as she ran. She'd take angry knights over grotesque monsters any day!<br/><br/>She caught Daveth looking back at her, matching his grin. Eventually, the rogue slowed to a stop, putting a hand out to catch Kat before she barrelled past him.<br/><br/>“What did you <em>do</em>?” Kat giggled, panting as she tried to catch her breath.</p><p>“Today? Nothing. Last week I managed to get a fat purse off some fat noble git, though. Suspect they’re still smartin’ from the buckle down from the higher-ups. Sir Fancy Britches had a lot to say when he noticed all his gold was gone,” the man chirped. Kat couldn’t help but snort - though a sharp pain in her foot forestalled any further laughter.</p><p>Running from the guards had not been kind to her feet. She grimaced, bending down to inspect the damage. Her feet were filthy, and she’d managed to not only scuff up her pedicure, but also cut the sole of her right heel on...whatever sharp and potentially disease-ridden objects littered the streets of Denerim.<br/><br/>She frowned. Something about that last realization bothered her, beyond the obvious sting of the cut.<br/><br/>She glanced up to see Daveth watching her. “Still aright there missy? Sure you don’t need me to take you someplace?” the rogue asked.<br/><br/>“Uhm. Well, I don’t really have anywhere to go,” Kat admitted. She straightened up, glancing around them. This alley didn’t seem all that different from the one she had woken up in, but what did she know? She supposed she could probably find her way to the Chantry, if she had to. Then again, this was still a dream. The best one she’d had in a while, but still. Finding the Chantry would probably come second to the shrill buzzing of her alarm in a minute or two. She'd have to scarf down some breakfast before rushing off to school and practice...<br/><br/>Daveth frowned at her. Now that the guards were nowhere in sight, he seemed relaxed, at ease almost. He brought up a hand to tap at his lips thoughtfully. “You got any skills? A trade?”<br/><br/>Kat shook her head, bemused. She didn’t have many skills to speak of, and certainly no trade that anyone from the Dragon Age world would understand. Hell, if she didn’t have fencing, she probably wouldn’t even be going to college. She wasn't drop dead gorgeous like some of the other girls at St. Adams High, she didn't have any musical talents or impressive hobbies, and she scored only on the upper end of average on all of her exams. Fencing and video games were more here speed, but only one of those things would do her any good here.<br/><br/>She realized that Daveth was still waiting on an answer, and she wracked her brain. Everything was going so quickly, it was hard for her to get her bearings. “Er. Nope. I mean...I’m a decent fence-...I mean, duelist, I guess? And I can ride a horse. Don’t ask me to cook or anything though, it’ll be the last thing you ever do,” she offered sardonically.<br/><br/>Daveth gave her an odd look. “You’re not secretly some sort of runaway noble girl or anything, are ya'? That’s not usually the skillset of some nobody street mouse.”<br/><br/>Kat snorted. “Ha! Me, a noble? Not hardly.” Hell, she was <em>adopted</em>. Her parents were pretty well off, but the idea of her being a noble was laughable.<br/><br/>The rogue leaned against the wall, his arms folded. “Well. At the very least, you can’t be walking around in your smallclothes. I’ve got some spare tunics you can borrow. Here, follow me.” He straightened, and then started leading her further down the alley.<br/><br/>Probably, she should have worried about being alone with a strange man in a strange city. She never would have followed a stranger into an empty alleyway in real life. But since this was a dream - and there were still no monsters in sight - Kat just shrugged, and followed along.<br/><br/>She trailed Daveth through a couple more streets, wincing along on her foot - until she was struck by a certain thought. “Hey, Daveth? How come you’re helping me?” she asked. It hadn’t occurred to her to wonder until now. In Origins, Daveth had been a nice enough guy. A rogue and a cutpurse, sure, but he’d seemed decent for all that. It struck her as strange now, though. She knew him from the game, but he’d just met her. She wasn’t so naive that she thought that everyone would have reacted with such nonchalance having met a half-naked girl, talking to herself, in the back of an alley. Was this one of those weird dream-logic things?<br/><br/>Daveth was silent for a moment, weighing her with his gaze. “Look, kid, I’ve been in this city almost six years now. I don’t know that I’ve ever met anyone who looks like they need help more’n you do.”<br/><br/>She blinked. “Uh. Thanks, I think?”<br/><br/>She could almost <em> feel </em>Daveth’s smirk. </p><p><em> Ass, </em> she thought fondly.</p><p>Daveth, it turned out, had permanently claimed a sheltered spot between two overarching rooftops. He climbed up with ease, finding footholds in the rough stone of the two surrounding buildings. It took some doing, but with Daveth lending her a hand up, eventually Kat managed to haul herself up beside him, glancing around in interest. It was a cozy little nook; it wasn’t immediately obvious from street level, and a good portion of it was sheltered from rain or snow by the overhang of the taller building’s roof. She could tell that Daveth spent a lot of time here; there was a bedroll laid out along the sheltered edge of the wall, and a few knick-knacks scattered around.</p><p>She watched as Daveth peeled a small chest out from a hollow in a nearby chimney. As promised, he handed her a well-worn homespun tunic and a pair of threadbare leggings. The new clothes were a little snug in the hips and bust, but fit pretty well otherwise; Daveth even turned around and gave her some privacy to change into them.</p><p>She was adjusting the neckline of the unfamiliar top when she felt Daveth’s hand touch her shoulder. She turned around to find him handing her a roll of (relatively) clean bandages. “Here,” he said, “For your foot. Looks like you managed to cut it up pretty good down there.”<br/><br/>Her brow furrowed as she took the bandages from him. She glanced down, and saw that yes, she was still bleeding. She knew, then, why the sight of her blood had bothered her so much before.<br/><br/>This was a dream….wasn’t it?<br/><br/>Were you supposed to bleed in a dream? Were you supposed to feel pain?</p><p>She’d always woken up before the monsters ever caught up to her. She couldn’t remember ever actually <em> feeling </em> anything in a dream.</p><p>Her head went a little woozy, so she missed the part where Daveth had started talking again. “-not much, but I run with a small crew sometimes. Most of us are more the freelancer type, but there’s strength in numbers, if ya' know what I mean. You can stay with us if you really don’t have anywhere to go. We’ll teach you the important bits. It’ll keep you from whoring, at the very least, though if you’d rather do that I’m sure -”<br/><br/>“Uh, no. I’m good. About the whoring, I mean. No whoring for me,” Kat forestalled. She sat heavily upon the rooftop, awkwardly unrolling the bandages and trying to wrap them around her foot in a way that they would stay put.<br/><br/>Daveth grinned at her, and she realized that he’d been teasing. “Well then. Welcome to the crew, Kat,” he chuckled.</p><p>Kat offered him a thin smile in return - and hoped that he did not catch her surreptitiously trying to pinch herself awake.</p><hr/><p><br/><br/>She ran with Daveth’s crew for about three months. With every day that passed, Kat’s determination that this was all a dream grew thinner, smaller, weaker. By now, she’d already accumulated a score of nicks, cuts, and bruises. If pain was going to wake her up, it would have done so sevenfold by now.</p><p>Every time she went to bed, she fell asleep hoping she'd wake up in her own bed. And every morning, she was disappointed to wake up in Denerim instead.<br/><br/>As a certified video game nerd, she probably should have been....excited? Awed? She wasn't sure what she should have felt, exactly. Mostly, she was just confused. It wasn't like she'd walked through a magic portal, or touched some shady, mystical object in real life. That, she might be able to understand. It'd still be weird, might be more like a fanfic than real life had any right to be, but she'd understand it. Getting sent to another world - a fictional, fantasy world - should have involved something more complicated than just <em>falling asleep. </em>No matter how it had happened, though, she was forced to face the unmitigated truth.</p><p>She was stuck in Thedas. In Denerim, specifically. And although there were probably worse videogames she could have plopped down into (she shuddered to think what might have happened if she'd been thrown into Resident Evil, instead), the circumstances were still less than ideal.</p><p>The first few days passed slowly, and every new revelation hit her like a freight train. There was no electricity, no running water (and yes, chamber pots were just as disgusting as she'd always imagined), and no air conditioning. There were apparently magical means to replicate all of the above, but those were for people with the coin to spend on them. She had no clothes beyond what Daveth could scrounge up for her, and no belongings to call her own. Fortunately, she was given little time to sulk about any of the above. Left to her own devices, she probably wouldn't have lasted a week.</p><p>But she wasn't alone. Only a day after she initially woke up in Denerim, Daveth introduced Kat to his 'crew'. The day after that, he'd shoved a dagger into her hands, and her training began in earnest. Daveth himself taught her the fine art of pickpocketing and cutting purses. She learned stealth techniques and lockpicking from Jarvis, a skinny elven teenager with a shock of spiky black hair and long, nimble fingers. Kestrel, a no-nonsense human woman who was an absolute terror with a blade, practically dragged Kat awake every morning at the ass crack of dawn to refine her skill with daggers.<br/><br/>Kat actively enjoyed the latter. It wasn’t so terribly different from fencing...assuming that you operated under the mindset that you used a foil in each hand, and that you were ambidextrous enough to make them move in tandem. The technique took some getting used to, but Kat already had the balance, and basic muscle memory served her well. Both dagger and foil required pinpoint precision and quick movements, and Kat found that she picked the rest up relatively quickly. Swordplay came to her as readily as breathing. <br/><br/>If she didn't let herself think too hard about it, the movement, the skills, were effortless and easy. Her body slid into a rhythm that shouldn't have been familiar, but was. Her lessons with Kestrel were almost like re-learning how to ride a bike; now that she was back in the driver's seat, it'd only taken the lightest nudge for her body to remember what it was about. She felt herself improving far beyond what her fencing skills should allow; after only a handful of weeks, she could hold her own on the streets well enough, and even Daveth admitted that he was impressed with her progress.</p><p>She found that she didn’t enjoy thievery the way her companions did. Kestrel and Jarvis always bragged about their exploits - who had nabbed the biggest purse, who had scammed the stupidest mark - and even Daveth felt some pride in his work, though he was a bit quieter about saying so. But taking coin from other people always made Kat feel guilty afterwards, even though the alternative was begging, starving, or whoring - in that order of preference. </p><p>The thing was, though, that she was <em> good </em> at it.<br/><br/>Not just the fighting, though that was perhaps the most obvious. The more she trained, though, the more skills she accumulated, as though each one was slowly coaxed from slumber. After only two days of practice, she moved in the shadows as readily as breathing. After only a few weeks, picking locks and pickpocketing were almost second nature. A door had been opened in her mind, and the plants in the garden within turned their leaves toward the sunlight. Every day, the crack in the door got a little wider, and she could feel that <em>something</em> blossom further, spreading roots through her heart and veins. <br/><br/>Part of her knew that she should wonder about that, question the ease with which her body awakened to the rogues' teachings. She summarily smothered that part, shoving it down into the same darkness that she'd put all of the other hows, whys, and 'OMG wtf?'s that accumulated. None of this made any sense at all, so there was no point in looking at it too hard. When she tried, she invariably gave herself a headache...and ended up swallowing the urge to burst out into tears.</p><p>Despite her best efforts, however, she wasn't wholly immune. She missed her room, and she missed her bed, and she missed hot showers - but she missed her friends and her parents most of all. One night, she woke up sobbing, and had ugly-cried all over poor Daveth when he’d asked her what was wrong. She’d admitted to missing her home, and the rogue had softly volunteered to help her find them, to take her back home. As if it were that easy. If there had been even a vague explanation for her circumstances, she'd at least have a place to start looking for answers. As it stood, however, she'd had no luck - and therefore no hope.</p><p>Kat had just shook her head, and sent Daveth away with a teary smile. </p><p>Slowly, she eased into her new life. She hardened her heart - because one did not survive for long on the streets of Denerim without a bit of steel in their soul.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>As always, thank you to everyone who takes some time out of their day to read Apothic Dark! It means the world to me, it really does. You're all wonderful, and I can't say enough how much I appreciate all the comments and kudos.</p><p>This chapter took me forever. Kat's adventures in Thedas have to start somewhere, of course. I hope I didn't throw anyone off with the timeline jump! Worry not, we'll be getting back to Kat's Fade adventures with the Archdemon very soon!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. The Fade and Other Delusions</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>When first I summoned her, she was a rose,<br/>Unwithering, unchanging, and unthorned,<br/>A spirit of the purest love one knows,<br/>Who never hated, coveted, or scorned.</p><p>A second time I drew her 'cross the Veil,<br/>And shared a walk, a dance, a stolen kiss;<br/>With such a perfect beauty, pure and pale,<br/>No woman could compare, no man resist.</p><p>Then in my weakness I essayed a third,<br/>Tho' magisters their warnings did impart.</p><p>She broke my binding with a single word,<br/>And said this smiling as she clutched my heart:<br/>"Though love I was, your passion's changing fire<br/>Has forged this spirit into cruel Desire."<br/>—Sonnet 126, "The Lover and His Spirit", from A Chant for Dreamers by Magister Oratius</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <h3>9:31 Dragon (?)<br/>???</h3><p>She woke up.</p><p>That in and of itself was somewhat of a surprise, so she took her time about it.<br/><br/>First, she opened her eyes - and after a moment, she let them fall closed again. There was little difference between the two degrees of clarity. The nebulous gloom and shifting light of eyes-open made her queasy, so she resigned herself to the shadows. Her eyesight had not, then, been magically restored while she slept. Her lashes fluttered against her cheek, and she breathed a small sigh of….relief? Disappointment? She was unsure of what the feeling in her chest should be called.<br/><br/>Even so, she felt like she ought to have been more...affected. Upset, even. Instead, her lack of eyesight was just another inevitable aspect of her new reality. Her mind compartmentalized it, examined it, and accepted it. She was blind. Functionally, if not wholly, she had lost her ability to see. It wasn’t a fact she seemed able to challenge at the moment, so she did not dwell on it. She had other things to worry about, and there was little logic in allowing her thoughts to linger.<br/><br/>She moved on, her consciousness and attention alighting on each observation just long enough to acknowledge it, just to skip swiftly onto another. She breathed in, examining the strange taste against her tongue, the acrid smell in her nose. Energy thrummed against her skin in a discordant hum, a purr of slow sensation that coiled close. It was flavorless, empty - waiting to be shaped. The awareness of that particular feeling was alien to one life, but familiar to another. She simultaneously knew it intimately, and did not know it at all. Two lifetimes, two memories, had merged into one. And both of them, everything she knew, had been forged into the singular awareness that was the her of this moment, of <em>now</em>. She lingered the longest over this new feeling, focusing on the novel buzzing sensation against her skin.</p><p>Magic, her memories whispered. She was sensing magic.</p><p>She stretched a hand out into the open air, playing with the threads of energy in the same way that she had once played with water in a current. They flowed around, <em> through </em> her fingers, dancing away in the same moment that they pressed near enough to touch. With a thought, she coaxed those threads into flame - and then ice. Cold coated her hand up to her elbow before she dissipated it with a sharp gesture, satisfied that the magic would heed her call. </p><p>This, too, probably should have upset her in some way. Instead, it was almost a relief. Magic had been an integral aspect of her Old God self; she could not bear the thought of being without it.</p><p>She hauled herself into a sitting position, going through much the same actions as the last time she had woken. Her muscles were sore, and her body felt stiff and unfamiliar. She rolled her shoulders experimentally, listening to the hum of music that sang just beneath the surface of her skin. The blight in her veins was more subdued than usual, but instead of the vague sense of dread it used to inspire, now it was...caged. Contained. Not gone, by any means, but the taint felt as though it had been placed behind a stiff barrier. She could see it, but it no longer touched her, no longer burned as it bubbled through her veins.</p><p>She could not deny that that was somewhat comforting, in the face of everything else. Urthemiel hadn’t lied. The Taint hadn’t been purged - she hadn't been cured, but she certainly wasn’t a darkspawn, either.</p><p>She stood, mechanically setting herself in order. Her physical status hadn’t changed overmuch since she’d last opened her eyes, though she had no way of knowing how long ago that had been. She still had no potions left. She still had her sword, and her dirk, and what was left of her armor. Though she wasn't in any pain now, her body still felt slightly strange, slightly alien. The scars on her face felt just as deep, their mark just as permanent. There was something subtly changed about her cheekbones, her lips, and the angle of her chin - but being unable to actually<em> see</em> any of it left her entirely ignorant of the actual differences.<br/><br/>Now that she was more coherent, she realized that the reason her fingertips had felt so strange before was because they, too, had shifted in shape. Her nails were rigidly pointed, almost talon-like; the shape of her fingers was now somewhere halfway between dragon talons and normal human hands. Clinically, she lifted her hands to her forehead to investigate a niggling suspicion - but no. She did not have horns. A shame.</p><p>With a sigh, she dropped her hands and faced the world beyond. Pinpricks of light gleamed against her closed eyelids. <em> Wisps, </em>she identified. She could <em>see</em> them, even blinded, nebulous spirits of light flitting to and fro in the distance. Occasionally darker shapes, different auras, would flash through the darkness, ghostly images superimposed over a shadowy landscape. She hummed thoughtfully to herself, recognizing the efforts of magic when she saw it. She didn’t question it; seeing wisps and spirits was better than nothing. Especially considering where she was.</p><p>She was in the Fade. <em> Trapped </em> in the Fade - because neither of her selves knew of any way out. It was different from her imprisonment as Urthemiel, and different from her singular journey into the Fade at Kinloch Hold; this time she was here physically. Barring a timely rip in the Veil, or a large magic ritual, she was stuck. In fact, she <em>had been </em> stuck for quite some time, though she could not say how long exactly. It was difficult to peel apart the truths accepted by her two former selves. Kat had likely only been in the Fade a few hours, perhaps a day at most, depending on how long she had slept. Urthemiel had been caged mentally in the Fade for far longer. The memory of freedom, of the world beyond, was tainted by the Blight, by the brief flash of ruin that the darkspawn had wrought. After being sealed away for so long, her mind and spirit trapped by old magics, even this new existence, this new self, was preferable. </p><p>She had never <em> wanted </em> to be an archdemon. She had only wanted to be <em> free</em>. But the song drew the darkspawn like moths to the flame, and their touch burned her just as surely as it did them. She'd never truly had a choice in the matter.</p><p>She weighed those memories in her mind before she carefully shut them away.<br/><br/>It was all just another stone on the pile that reaffirmed the fact that she was not Kat. Her body, her mind, her memories...none of it was truly Kat's. Not anymore. The name was familiar, but it didn’t fit - like a favorite set of armor she’d just barely outgrown. Though she tried to squeeze herself into it, the buckles chafed and the chainmail pinched. She might <em> want </em> it to fit, but forcing the issue would only end up making her uncomfortable. The name Urthemiel didn’t seem any more appropriate, though. It was a bit of a mouthful - and the connotation and history thereof was rather unfortunate.<br/><br/>No - she was not one, but nor was she the other. Memories mixed and mingled, frayed threads at both ends woven together to create a new pattern. <em> Once two, and now one. </em> The sentiment made sense now, where it had seemed like nonsense before. She was not Katherine, but she was not Urthemiel - she was both and neither all at once. What she was, whoever she was, was something new, something different altogether. And there were new truths, new realities she must now confront.</p><p>To Thedas, Kat had died killing the Archdemon. She vaguely remembered watching the cinematics over a year ago, the cutscenes that came after the end of the game. How far away and long ago that seemed; a different life, a different world, where dragons and the Blight were only words and pixels on the screen. Nevertheless, the game gave her a starting point, a means by which she could guess at some of what came next. A new Warden would become the Warden-Commander at Amaranthine. Morrigan would disappear. Alistair would rule as King - and briefly meet Hawke in Kirkwall. The events of Dragon Age 2 had already begun, and she would not be there to see it.</p><p>At least, not if she was stuck here.</p><p>Steeling her spine, the Warden - she <em> was </em> still a Warden, wasn’t she? - began to walk. Almost immediately, she tripped, her hands barking with pain as she threw them out to catch her fall. Her depth perception and her sense of balance were thrown off by her lack of eyesight. With a guttural snarl, she shoved herself upright again. Physically walking in the Fade - and simultaneously trying to accustom herself to a relatively unfamiliar body - was going to be a literal pain in her ass.<br/><br/>And in fact, at first her progress was mind-numbingly slow; she could not see, after all, and the physical Fade had not been designed with nice, level topography. In fact, it was littered with rocks, potholes, valleys, and lukewarm pools of questionable liquid. She fell several times before she began using her sword as a sort of cane, feeling out the ground in front of her before committing to a step. It helped, so she kept at it. Walking was vastly preferable to languishing in one spot, hoping, praying, <em> waiting </em> for something to happen. </p><p>So she stumbled on, and she walked forward into the Fade.</p><hr/><p>She did not know how long she traveled. She didn’t get hungry. She was never thirsty. Instead, she drew from the Fade, using its energy to sustain her. It was a bit, she imagined, like plants used the sun. She soaked up the ambient magical energy, and converted it into the fuel she needed. In this way, she was using her magic for more than just <em> seeing </em> spirits - and her memories classified all of it as <em> normal</em>. There was an inexhaustible supply of magic in the Fade, so she didn’t think twice about utilizing it.</p><p>She noted, too, that her body seemed stronger, more agile. Another result of taking Urthemiel into herself? Most likely. At this point, she was in uncharted territory, and could only guess. She could not see what changes the merger had taken on her physically, of course, but she suspected that they extended beyond her lethal manicure. Slowly, she acclimatized to the feel of her body, as familiar and foreign as it was. Slowly, she grew used to using her magic, to the feeling of the elemental conduits, to the memories of wards and spells and runes that the human Kat had never utilized in her own life. Her ability to shapeshift came in some small use here; she could assume the form of her dragon-self, but flying blind was more risk than reward.</p><p>Demons, perhaps sensing what she was, usually gave her a wide berth, but some were less prudent than others. Some tried to talk to her, tried to tempt her. Others merely attacked her on sight. After a while, she ceased trying to reason with them, saving her breath for more productive pursuits. When she fought - and she fought often - she used both sword and spell. Her rogue’s intuition, her duelist instincts, slid seamlessly into barriers and cones of cold, into flame-wreathed weapons and magically enhanced shadow. She used all of the skills within her repertoire - because after all this, she could not stand the thought of falling to some random demonic peon.</p><p>She grew familiar with the idiosyncrasies of the enemies she faced. Rage was an entity of instinct, not logic. Fear was much the same, eschewing reason almost entirely - and Pride could not fathom the ramifications of defeat. She learned to tell them all apart by their auras, by the feel of their energy against hers. Despair was chill and grey, and tasted like barbed wire and metallic ice. Envy was the keen ache of hunger, orange and brown and greedy, ever empty and covetous. Each demon had a unique signature, and they burned bright against her blindness.</p><p>She left a swathe of silence behind her, pushing ever onward, leaving the scattered remnants of corrupted spirits behind.</p><p>Fortunately, demons were not the only denizens of the Fade. Spirits of Honor and Duty were drawn to her often, but it was Purpose who empathized most keenly with her desire to escape the Fade. A spirit of Learning visited her frequently, curious to hear of the world beyond, and eager to impart its own knowledge in turn. They helped guide her through the more treacherous parts of the Fade, steering her around cliffs and through dangerous valleys that might have proven difficult for her to navigate otherwise. She would not call them friends, but they were welcome distractions from the monotony of the Fade. Helpful, even. At the very least, they gave her someone to talk to.<br/><br/>"Where are you going?" Curiosity asked once.<br/><br/>"Somewhere. Anywhere." Her voice echoed strangely in the Fade.<br/><br/>"Why?" the spirit pressed.<br/><br/>Countless answers ran through her mind. She settled for, "I am not like you. I do not belong here."<br/><br/>The spirit paused, but then asked, "Are you sure?"<br/><br/>She had no answer for that question, and left the spirit behind.</p><p>And she walked. And walked. And walked some more. She did not know where she was going, or how to get there, but that seemed less and less important as time wore on.</p><p>Occasionally, she accidentally stumbled into a dream. She enjoyed these accidents; the Fade was shaped by the dreamer’s perception of events, and in these instances she found herself wandering through lush forests, sprawling mansions, and cozy apartments at length. These were the only times when she could ‘see’ more than just the spirits in the world around her. The dreamer’s aura colored their entire dreamscape, and the setting was just as vibrant as the dreamer themselves. Though she desperately wished she could influence the dream, communicate with the dreamers, she was always left to prowl on the periphery. Try though she might, she was never an active participant - and her time within the dreamscape was always temporary. </p><p>Active memories within the Fade were rarer, but just as interesting. When spirits gathered to reenact events of the past, she lingered to watch. Ancient wars, long-past banquets, heroes bright and burning - the Fade seemed to gravitate towards events of some import, though sometimes she had trouble discerning why or how one memory was any more relevant than another. </p><p>Still, both the dreams and the memories were a pleasant diversion from the bleak, dismal shadow landscape to which she’d become accustomed. Intangible though they were, the glimpses into other consciousnesses made her otherwise solitary journey less monotonous. They kept her from going insane.</p><p>Time passed strangely. She had no way of telling night from day, or hour from minute. Her life became an endless litany of walking, sleeping, and fighting. Occasionally she’d talk to a spirit. Occasionally she’d watch a memory within the Fade. But then, inevitably, she would continue walking, and sleeping, and fighting. <em> Fight, heal, rinse, repeat. </em> Were it not for her magic, she would have gained a litany of new scars from the few times she had been overwhelmed by the sheer number of demons that were drawn to her. It was better now. Whether word had spread, or simply because her auric signature was stronger, the fighting was more manageable, less constant.</p><p>Even so, she felt filthy; magic alone was not enough to clean her of all the sweat and grime and gore that accumulated in all of her time in the Fade. What little weight was left on her to lose, she lost. </p><p>She was forcibly made aware that her hair had grown longer when a particularly nasty Pride demon snagged a fistfull of it during a battle. With a vicious scowl, she sawed through the length of of smouldering locks it with her dirk - and used the same blade to stab through Pride's throat. She could hardly see her head to make the impromptu cut more even, so she did the best she could by feeling alone - and some indefinite time later, when her hair became enough of a nuisance again, she simply sheared it all off at the neck. Too quickly, though, it seemed to regain its length. She stopped noticing after the fourth -fifth? - time.</p><p>More directly concerning was the state of her armor. Already battered and beaten to begin with, time and the constant strain of battle had ruined it beyond salvation. What remained was tattered and torn and barely functional. She kept what she could, and discarded the rest.</p><p>She slept when she got tired, which seemed to happen often. Though the Fade energized her, she knew that her mortal body was not accustomed to existing for so long without physical sustenance. She was always tired lately - a bone-deep weariness that ached, that settled behind her eyes and weighed upon her spine. So she slept, curled against a boulder or tucked into a hollow in the earth, and she set wards and barriers to keep the demons and the fearlings at bay. </p><p>And when she woke, it was only ever to resume walking, and fighting, and searching<em>.</em></p><hr/><p><br/>“Oh my. What do we have here?”<br/><br/>A sultry voice burned against her ears. The spirit glowed a smoky purple and deep red against the darkness, pressing close; Desire, then. She put up a barrier as easy as breathing. Her fingers twitched against the hilt of her longsword as the prickling touch of cold magic encased her body.</p><p>“Go away.” Her voice was harsh, rough with disuse. She frowned, claws coming up to touch her throat. When was the last time she’d spoken out loud?<br/><br/>“Oh, you poor dear. Let me help you.” The Desire demon drifted closer, and the bright flash of their spirit brushed against her barrier.</p><p>Her hair was again longer than she remembered it being; she absently twisted a lock over her shoulder, frowning at the feeling of grit and tacky blood on her fingers. “Not interested. Get out of my way.”</p><p>“But I can give you what you want,” the demon crooned. </p><p>She almost laughed. Almost. “No. You can’t.”</p><p>“Oh, but I can. You want to find a way out of here, do you not? You want to return to your friends, your family. I can help you.”</p><p>She tightened her grip on the pommel, and a sheen of cold ice danced along her fingertips. “I won’t warn you again.”</p><p>“So eager to deny my offer. But you don’t know what you’re missing. You don’t know what the world has been like since you’ve been trapped here. Alone. You're so very...different than you were before. Your friends miss you so, so much. Leliana. Alistair. And then...oh, your <em> mother</em>. She misses you most of all. Wouldn’t you like to see them?”</p><p>The demon didn’t wait for an answer. Her surroundings trembled, shifted. She stood in her kitchen - her old kitchen, in Seattle. The radio on the counter was playing some old Beatles hit, while her mom stood at the stove, making her famous double chocolate cookies. Wynn stood beside her, quietly offering some sort of running commentary to the qunari, who seemed fascinated by the entire baking process.</p><p>And perhaps most shocking of all, she could actually <em>see</em> everything. The tasteful wood floors, the aggressively floral wallpaper that her mother insisted was 'stylish' and 'retro'...Sten, with his looming muscles, and Wynne with her soft silver hair neatly arranged in her habitual bun. And her mother...Kat felt a wave of nostalgia hit her, and her heart ached as she hungrily traced her mom's features, as she drank in the little details that she'd almost forgotten.</p><p>It was all an illusion, she knew. Even so...she lingered for a moment, her attention drifting slowly around the kitchen, clinging to the reality that would never be true….but that, for guilty moments in camp, she had wished <em> could </em> be. </p><p>Laughter burst from the next room, calling her away. “Kat! Kat, come here, it’s your turn!” Her gaze clung to her mom’s back for a minute, but the edges of the dream pressed around her, and she drifted obediently into the next room.</p><p>Alistair, Morrigan, Leliana and Zevran were sprawled on her couch. They looked so...different, in jeans and T-shirts, but somehow also so very <em> right </em>, as if it should have been this way all along. A board game - Ticket to Ride? - was set up on the coffee table, pieces sprawled everywhere. Leliana glanced up as she entered the room, and a blush spread over the redhead’s cheeks. Kat - she was Kat here, now - wondered at that, but was distracted as someone pounded heavily at the front door.</p><p>“Kat, can you grab that? It’s probably your father and Ogren with the beers,” her mom called from the kitchen.</p><p>Kat shook her head. “No. No, I won’t.”</p><p>A pause, as the crew on the couch looked up at her, puzzled. Wynn rounded the corner. “What’s wrong, dear?” she asked.</p><p>Kat sighed.</p><p>She raised a hand, and flooded the dreamscape with her power. The scene dissolved, broken apart by the sudden flood of energy. She was thrown into darkness again, and the Desire demon stood in front of her once more. She could almost hear the resultant pouty lip.</p><p>“No fair!” Desire cried. “You - “</p><p>She reached through the barrier and closed her fingers around the demon’s neck. It choked, clawing at her with hands wreathed in fire; the Warden ignored it, dispelled the other magic, and dragged the demon closer.</p><p>“Nice try. I’d give it a solid 8 out of 10. But maybe go for something a bit more original next time? The last Desire demon tried the same scenario.” She shook the demon in her grasp roughly, and the corrupted spirit whimpered. “What is it with demons and board games?”</p><p>She paused, holding the demon up off the ground with a mere whisper of the strength her new body possessed. “If you really do know a way out, then tell me now. Maybe I won’t kill you for wasting my time.”</p><p>The demon struggled, fear rolling off of it in palpable waves. It was a young thing - or stupid, not to have recognized the power in her aura. The Warden's grip tightening with impatience.</p><p>“No! No, I don’t know. Please, please don’t kill me. I will help you, I swear it. We can work together.” Desire’s tone rose from mild panic to desperate wheedling.</p><p>She tilted her head, considering. And when she smiled, it was a dangerous thing, full of too-sharp teeth.</p><p>“No,” she whispered. She jerked the demon forward, slotting her lips across Desire’s. The demon only had time for a quick intake of shocked breath.</p><p>She drew the demon’s energy towards herself. It was a bit like using the raw energy of the fade - except, instead of drawing from an inexhaustible source, she slowly drained a finite one. </p><p>Desire tasted like fire.</p><p>…</p><p>A little while later, she straightened. She wasn’t as tired as she had been.</p><p>And Desire was dust on the wind.</p><hr/><p>It was a good bit of time later that she found herself wandering at the fringes of Nightmare’s realm. By then, she'd consumed two more Desire demons, a demon of Pride, and a particularly obnoxious spirit of Command. Each time she 'ate' a spirit, she grew a little bit stronger, and was able to push on further without needing to stop and rest. Her hunger, her weariness, were assuaged for a time after she took a spirit's energy into herself, so she made a habit of 'eating' whenever she grew too weary to continue on.<br/><br/>She’d been in the Nightmare before, though a spirit of Purpose had led her through it the first time. Generally, she tried avoid the 'territories' of the more powerful spirits, all too aware that she was only one mistake away from a permanent end. There was no one here to help her, after all. No one here to save her if she wandered too far off the path. She was stronger than most of the spirits that walked the Fade by far - but that was no reason to be stupid. She was, after all, still mortal.</p><p>But here, now...Coming upon Nightmare's territory again made her wonder if she was just walking in circles. She skirted the edge of the antagonistic dreamscape, careful not to delve too deep as the magic snapped against her skin.</p><p>The Fade was in turmoil here. She frowned as she blasted a group of fearlings out of her way, lightning crackling off of her fingertips as she sheathed her sword. She couldn’t recall the demon that ruled this corner of the Fade ever being so active. </p><p>And then -</p><p>A scream pierced the Fade’s ephemeral silence. Her head snapped towards the sound - and then the world went dark.</p><hr/><p>This time, when she woke, she was in a dungeon.</p><p>The stone was frosty and remarkably solid under her knees. Her hands were shackled; thick, heavy things that chafed her wrists in a strangely uncomfortable way. She was cold; a draft whipped through the room, reflecting off of the uncompromising stone. She frowned. The Fade was never cold. It wasn't anything. Was this a dream, then? Had she somehow managed to fall into one accidentally?</p><p>No. She could not ‘see’ her surroundings. So then...not a dream. Not a memory, either.</p><p>She lifted her head - and froze. Five spirits surrounded her, but each of them were...polluted. Chaotic. Rage and despair and...fear? Emotions and impressions flashed too quick for her to discern any one true ideology, but they were too structured, too bright for wisps. She’d never seen anything like them before. </p><p>She stiffened, nostrils flaring. The scent of metal hit her nose, and the subtle scrape of platemail was loud in her ears. She could also hear the crackle of fire and smell the burning of pitch from several distinct directions all around her. <em> Torches</em>, her mind supplied.</p><p>She growled, and she heard several hands tighten on their...swords? Yes. </p><p>So then...they were a threat.</p><p>Her hands tightened into fists - but before she could act, the Fade flashed on her palm. <em> In </em> her palm. A vibrant splash of green, blinding against the darkness. Pain radiated up her arm as the acidic glow spread, and she grimaced against the subtle buzz that burned against the bones in her hand. It tugged uncomfortably against her aura, pulling, <em> tearing </em> - </p><p>A loud crash interrupted her unexpected agony. Her head snapped up, her eyes opening reflexively. She winced as the diffuse light burned into her retinas, and snapped her eyes shut just as quickly. </p><p>It didn’t matter either way. She watched as two more spirits walked into the dungeon. One burned with the same colors as Faith, and strode powerfully into the room. The other approached more slowly, its aura tightly contained. </p><p>She stiffened. </p><p>Almost-Faith stalked closer, circling behind her. She let it happen; she could still see them, burning bright in her peripheral vision.</p><p>And then -</p><p>“Tell me why we shouldn’t kill you now.”</p>
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          <p>I apologize for how disjointed this chapter seems! Please let me know if there's anything you'd like to see going forward, or if you have any suggestions for the flow of the story! I can't wait to start getting into the plot of Inquisition proper.</p>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. A New Name</h2></a>
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    <p>“The Conclave is destroyed. Everyone who attended is dead. Except for you.”</p><p>Venom dripped from richly accented syllables, each one dressed in upper-class derision.</p><p>The voice - Almost-Faith - sounded female in tone. The designation of gender wasn’t wholly unheard of, so she didn't question the cadence. Although some spirits were ambiguous in appearance, and a few eschewed the idea of binaries completely, there were some that naturally gravitated towards stereotypically male or female traits. Collective perception shaped the Fade and the spirits that inhabited it. The Warden knew this intrinsically, even if what she 'saw' when she looked at a spirit more closely resembled a blurry smear of light and aura than any sort of solid humanoid figure.</p><p>But the spirit's seeming was a secondary observation, and the Warden was moreso concerned with the words, not the tone or the voice by which they were spoken. She spared a moment to wonder what the Conclave was - and how she had supposedly attended. All she remembered was the Fade...and then, the scream. Everything after that was curiously blank. She felt her brow furrow as she tried to wade through the darkness of her memory, but...there was nothing.</p><p>Her silence was taken as a lack of answer, and Almost-Faith's aura flashed with renewed frustration. The spirit stalked forward, grabbing the manacles around the Warden's wrists with a harsh jerk. “Explain <em> this</em>, abomination!” she snarled.</p><p>The Fade mark in her palm, with deliciously devious timing, sputtered, and green flashed across her vision. Pain wracked her form again, and she closed her talons around it, but...<em> abomination</em>? Almost-Faith had all but spat the word. And that was...strange. The term wasn’t wholly inaccurate, but most spirits considered mortal mergers to be normal, desirable even. The only creatures that despised the spirit-touched so fervently were - </p><p>The former Warden was distracted from her speculation as she was forced to grit her teeth against the tearing, pulling, <em> ripping </em> pain in her arm. The mark eventually quieted, but it was shredding her soul to pieces, one bit at a time. The pain was an unwelcome distraction from the conversation at hand. “It’s a piece of the Fade, obviously,” she ground out. Her voice was scratchy and hoarse after being so long neglected. “But I'm not sure how it got there.”</p><p>There was a pause, as the spirits (?) digested that knowledge, but then - “You’re lying!” Almost-Faith snarled. A brief wisp of intent warned her before the spirit could lift her hand to strike; a barrier flashed over the Warden’s skin, and the manacles between her hands shattered with a whisper of power. She gathered her magic to her and coiled it close, like a serpent ready to strike, just waiting for the spirit to make the first move. Her eyes were vacant and open and watering against the shifting torchlight, but they were locked unerringly on the spirit's form all the same. </p><p>The whisper of steel was loud in the dungeon as the surrounding spirits drew their weapons, stances shifting, fear loud and gleaming oh-so-blue in the confined space. Almost-Faith made a strangled sound as her sword cleared her sheath, but then - “We need her, Cassandra!” the second one warned.</p><p>The Warden’s eyes narrowed. Cassandra? Not Fervor, or Conviction? Not Truth, or Purpose? </p><p>Cassandra.<br/><br/>She allowed her magic to dissipate, her barrier slowly bleeding away. A dark suspicion gripped her, and she was suddenly quite unwilling to play prisoner. “Where am I?” she demanded.</p><p>The other spirit - the one that was so rigidly structured, so tightly contained - stepped even closer. “We are in Haven,” the lilting French - Orlesian? - accent offered. The voice sounded familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it. “Do you not remember what happened? How this began?”</p><p>The Warden stilled. Haven. Dragon cult Haven? Haven, of the waking world, <em> that </em> Haven?<br/><br/>Her mind seized on the possibilities, frantically working through what little information she had. It was remotely possible that she had stumbled into a dream. But a dream in the Fade had never felt quite like <em>this</em>. And the surroundings, the features of what she assumed to be the dungeon around her, were not visible...unlike the dreamscapes she'd stumbled into in the Fade. And the spirit - <em>Cassandra</em> - and she was <em>cold</em> - Which meant....<br/><br/>A thrill of elation filled her. She ignored the pain in her hand, the pain behind her eyes, even as she struggled not to let her excitement show on her face. This was...She had done it. She had escaped the Fade. Never mind how, or why. This was <em> real</em>.</p><p>These were not spirits - they were <em> people </em>.</p><p>But Cassandra and the unknown woman with the French-Orlesian accent were still waiting for an answer. 'Did she remember...?' She shook her head. “No. I was in the Fade for...a long time. I remember hearing a scream. I went to investigate, and then…” Her memory stretched, and then withdrew. There was nothing after that. A sudden thought snapped her attention back towards the two. “What year is it?” she questioned suddenly.</p><p>She felt, more than saw, Cassandra and the other woman trade a <em> look</em>. The Orlesian's focus narrowed, sharpened; she could feel predatory eyes boring into her.<br/><br/>“It is 9:41 Dragon, of course,” Cassandra scoffed. </p><p>The Warden frowned. 9:41? But that was...no, it couldn’t possibly. She could not have been in the Fade for <em> ten years</em>.</p><p>Her mind was reeling, but her reformed mentality compartmentalized the shock that would have otherwise smothered her sense of self. She reviewed the facts, composed the timeline in her mind, and waded through memories long since buried. 9:41 was after the events of Dragon Age 2. Granted, she had never finished the second game, so she wasn’t entirely certain what had happened with Hawke and the crew at the end, but...The memories were faded and distant now, but she <em> did </em> remember the Inquisition box art. She had watched the trailers, but had tried to steer well clear of spoilers. It was like dredging up a story from a life half remembered, but...</p><p>She glanced down at the Fade shimmering in her palm - and grimaced. Yes. <em>That</em>, she remembered.</p><p>“Fuck.”</p><p>The viciously snarled word snapped Cassandra’s attention back towards her. With a huff, the woman ushered her companion towards the entrance. “Go to the forward camp, Leliana. I will take her to the rift.”<br/><br/>Alarm bells went off in her head as the Orlesian woman turned and left without another word. The Warden’s attention lingered on her retreating back, ephemeral and ghostly against the black. Leliana? The voice had been familiar. But such a closed off, cold spirit...Was it really <em> her </em> Leliana?<br/><br/>Surely not. Leliana would have said something, should have recognized the Kat-she-used-to-be. Right?</p><p>The Warden stood, her brow furrowed, her mouth open to question - only for Cassandra to whirl towards her. The woman’s firm grip pressed harshly into the curve of the Warden's shoulder. “You will come quietly.”<br/><br/>She sighed, and shrugged the woman’s hand off. Her eyes blinked slowly, and her mouth set into a thin line. “Cassandra. If I wanted to escape, I would have already.”<br/><br/>“I would like to see you try,” the woman snarled, a hand on the pommel of her sword.<br/><br/>The Warden shook her head, trying not to smile. “No. You wouldn’t."<br/><br/>She knew that she was antagonizing the woman - anger flashed bright and hot across the woman’s aura - but she could not bring herself to temper her reactions. It had been such a long time since she had talked to an actual <em> person</em>. Spirits and demons would stave off the loneliness for a time, but they were all so single-minded. Spirits were rarely strong enough to be anything other than one-dimensional caricatures of the vice or virtue they represented. But people....yes, she'd missed people. They were so inconstant, so complex. She found herself staring into Cassandra's aura, captivated by the other woman's emotions. </p><p>She came to herself again in the next breath. Pushing aside her lingering questions about Leliana, she managed to convince Cassandra to forego any sort of binding by reminding the woman of the manacles she’d already destroyed. The woman had scoffed, but conceded the point. Once that was settled, she followed the spirit-image that Cassandra left in her wake. It was easier when they walked outside; the chill touch of winter and the crisp scent of snow were a slap in the face after being trapped so long in the featureless Fade. </p><p>A snowflake fell upon her cheek. She almost smiled. She almost cried.</p><p>Air. Wind. Snow. She inhaled deep, hoarding the pine-and-frost smell deep in her lungs. <em> Real. </em></p><p>But...there was something wrong. She paused, feeling the magic tremble against her skin - and she glanced up. Her eyes, still reflexively open, widened against the eerie light that assaulted them. The Fade peered into the waking world through a shattered window in the sky. Plumes of energy spilled from it, assaulting the earth. The Veil had been torn open - as though a recalcitrant toddler had punched a hole straight through its heart. She had never seen anything like it before, and she never wanted to see anything like it ever again. </p><p>“We call it the Breach. It’s a massive rift into the world of demons that grows larger with each passing hour. It’s not the only such rift, just the largest. All were caused by the explosion at the conclave,” Cassandra explained. </p><p>She shifted, still staring up at the sky. The silence stretched between them - until the Breach pulsed, and the mark on her arm flared in response. She <em> snarled</em>, her talons reflexively digging into her palms as she staved off the pain, locking her knees so that she didn’t collapse.<br/><br/>Cassandra moved closer, though whether it was to help her, or put her out of her misery, the Warden didn't know. She wasn’t sure which would be more preferable. “Each time the Breach expands, your mark spreads… and it is killing you. It may be the key to stopping this - but there isn’t much time.”<br/><br/>She snorted, and purposefully closed her eyes. Of course. She had been transported to another world, had survived the Joining, had defeated the Archdemon, and had lived for ten years in the Fade...only to be killed by a glowing green mark in her hand.<br/><br/>The Warden rolled her shoulders. If she lived long enough to worry about it, she'd do so...later. “Let’s get this over with.”<br/><br/>Cassandra paused. “So then…?”<br/><br/>“If this thing is the key to stopping the Breach, then I don’t really have much choice, do I?” she wondered. It was an intellectual question. <em> Did </em> she have a choice? <br/><br/>“None of us has a choice,” Cassandra snapped.<br/><br/>Well, that answered that.</p><p>The Warden huffed - and indulging a masochistic urge, she squinted up at the Breach again. She could not seem to drag her eyes away, as much as she wanted to. The green clouds of magic, the torn pieces of the Veil...they all writhed and roiled, a corrupted storm that drowned out all else in the sky. But the shifting of light and the interplay of magic was dizzying. She sighed, and let her eyes fall shut with a small wince. If she had held out hope that the waking world would be kinder to her eyesight than the Fade, she had obviously been mistaken. The Fade had been constant, dull. Even the overcast sky of the waking world was far brighter than the light she'd grown used to, and the shifting shadows and reflections made her head spin.</p><p>“Why do you do that?” Cassandra questioned, leather and metal making muffled sounds as her armor shifted with her weight.<br/><br/>“Do what?” she asked, lifting a hand into the air. Perhaps she could catch a snowflake.<br/><br/>“Your eyes. Are you injured? The healer did not mention - ”<br/><br/>She paused. Was it not obvious? “I’m blind, Cassandra.” She let her hand fall. <br/><br/>The woman froze. “I...Oh. I did not realize.”</p><p>She shrugged, her words snapping with ill-disguised impatience. “Magic will compensate, for the most part. I will try not to be a burden.”<br/><br/>Cassandra huffed, and turned around in disgust. She might have muttered something uncomplimentary about magic abominations, her footfalls heavy as she stalked over the snow. The aforementioned abomination followed, moving more slowly; she had not realized that her boots were in such a sorry state, and the cold seeped through jagged holes in the reinforced leather. She didn’t have her sword, either, and without a way to feel out the ground in front of her, the rocks and uneven dips in the terrain made it difficult for her to walk forward with any confidence. Fortunately, there was enough greenery to provide a rough picture of the ground in front of her; with the faint life force they gave off, she would not run into any trees or bushes, at any rate. </p><p>She contented herself with following Cassandra, the Almost-Faith flavor of the other woman’s spiritual signature acting as a bold beacon in the darkness. She wasn’t sure, but she thought that the woman was shortening her stride to make up for her slower pace.</p><p>They descended a small ridge, and the town of Haven spread out before them. It was bright compared to the surrounding landscape, filled with people that burned bright against their black surroundings.</p><p>And the <em> sounds</em>. She paused as Cassandra led her out into the village proper. People gathered on either side of the trail, each life a unique flicker of multifaceted energy against the darkness of her eyelids. They were fear, rage, despair, love...so many emotions, and each identity was unique. And they were all, each one of them...angry.</p><p>“They have decided your guilt. They need it. The people of Haven mourn our Most Holy, Divine Justinia, head of the Chantry. The Conclave was hers. It was a chance for peace between mages and templars. She brought their leaders together. Now, they are dead.”<br/><br/>Amusement flickered against her thoughts, distant and alien - and utterly inappropriate given the subject matter. Cassandra was clearly fulfilling the function of the narrative exposition in this scenario. <em>Hello, tutorial.</em></p><p>Two sets of memories weighed the news of the Divine’s death. <em> Unfortunate</em>, was the prevalent opinion. <em> Wasteful. </em> <em><br/></em> <em><br/></em>They walked through the town, to the doors at the far side. They opened with a creak of wood and metal, with a few pinpricks of spirit manning the either side. She and Cassandra walked out onto a…bridge? Yes. She could feel the edge of the wind, and there were ghosts of plant life far below. </p><p>Cassandra turned towards her. “Come. It is not far.”</p><p>“It?”<br/><br/>“We must test your mark on something smaller than the Breach.”</p><hr/><p><br/>There were 35 corpses on the bridge.</p><p>Corpses looked strange in her spirit-sight. Like dreamers, almost - echoes of echoes. She tallied the numbers almost absently. Her magic could only see that which was living - or that which had recently been so, apparently. Life was its own sort of magic. </p><p>There were living people clustered around their dead. The Chant of Light droned lowly in the background, and one near catatonic soldier rocked back and forth near the bridge’s midway point. They all stopped and stared when she ran face-first into a stack of wooden crates, cursing darkly as the pile topped over with a loud crash. Cassandra hauled her forward, grabbing her elbow to steer her around the obstruction.</p><p>After that, she was forced to walk almost exactly in Cassandra’s wake, lest she accidentally bump into another pile of debris or trip over an unexpectedly rough patch of terrain. Cassandra was more patient with her than she would have thought, but she could still feel the warrior's frustration mounting as they continued forward to the end of the bridge.<br/><br/>Cassandra called out for the soldiers to open the gates, and they swiftly stepped through. The air opened up; there was more vegetation, but there was also more variance in the terrain.<br/><br/>There were more corpses on the hill. More soldiers maintained strategic positions on the incline, and their auras burned bright with fear. And all the while, the Breach glowed green and gruesome on the horizon.</p><p>“What did happen?” she asked.<br/><br/>She could feel Cassandra weighing her answer. “They said you… stepped out of a rift, then fell unconscious. They say a woman was in the rift behind you. No one knows who she was. Everything farther in the valley was laid waste, including the Temple of Sacred Ashes. I suppose you’ll see soon enough.”<br/><br/>She nodded, silent as she digested Cassandra's words. She concentrated on placing one foot in front of the other; it was easy, almost habit, after so long in the Fade.</p><p>There were nine more corpses on the path. Death felt familiar too, though it was no less tragic in its scope.</p><p>They stepped onto the cold stone of another bridge, and the sky wept. Before she could identify the soft sound that slid towards them - <em> impact</em>. There was a devastating crash, and the stone beneath her feet suddenly heaved up and out and apart. She tumbled hard through the air, and slammed onto the earth below. A barrier slid over her skin, protecting her from the worst of the fall, but she crashed onto cold, hard ice all the same. </p><p>She and Cassandra struggled to their feet. Another whistling noise approached, and this time she could name it. Not an arrow, but larger; something hurtling through the air. She reached out with her magic, stretching her senses, but could see nothing. The earth trembled again, but this time she maintained her footing as the lifeless object impacted with the ground.</p><p>And then the Shade appeared. It coalesced from the pooling particles of the Fade, roaring loud enough to wake the dead as it noticed them standing nearby. Compared to the novelty of the waking world, the demon was almost familiar. </p><p>“Stay behind me!” Cassandra yelled. The woman charged forward, her sword sliding from her sheath with a cold metallic hiss.</p><p>The Warden snorted. Was Cassandra trying to protect her? <em>How cute.</em></p><p>Her attention snapped away from the warrior as another Shade crawled from the cracks in the ether. It lurched towards her, mad with pain and babbling in defiant rage.</p><p>After so long with her sword and dirk, fighting without physical weapons felt strange. But she would make do. She tugged the Fade nearer, weaving the web of magic. It was harder in the waking world; sluggish, compared to the mindless ease of the Fade. She hummed under her breath, coaxing the tempo of the magic a bit faster. It smoothed into an ageless song, pooling in her clawed hands.</p><p>This...this was familiar. This, she knew.</p><p>Ice wreathed her fingers, pooling between her palms. She allowed the Shade to lurch closer - and then she tugged at the magic. A jagged spear of ice tore up from the frozen lake beneath them, impaling the agonized demon. It shrieked in pain even as she ice ripped through its form. She released the magic, allowing the Shade to crash to the ground - and then she nudged the magic again. This time, the Shade's scream was higher pitched.</p><p>Perhaps it wasn’t mature of her to make a pincushion out of the poor demon. But it made her feel better. She repeated the action, just to make sure the thing was dead.</p><p>Cassandra stomped over towards her, having slain her own enemy.</p><p>“You...you do not need a staff to do magic?” the woman asked - as if the very idea was an insult. Her aura prickled with alarm, and the creak of leather and metal was loud in the sudden silence.</p><p>The Warden's brow furrowed. Most magisters and senior enchanters would have been comfortable working magic without a staff; only novices truly required them as conduits. Staves made directing arcane energy easier, and often could be enchanted to amplify unformed magical energy. Despite her demonstration in the dungeon, had Cassandra assumed that she had no control of her abilities? Or, perhaps, that her skills were limited to barriers alone?<br/><br/>The idea was almost insulting.</p><p>“No,” she answered sharply. The word was short, clipped. <br/><br/>Cassandra scoffed. “That does not reassure me.” </p><p>“It is not supposed to.”</p><p>The warrior’s frown was almost audible by this point; she turned to walk away, but the Warden put a light hand on the woman’s elbow to get her attention. Cassandra didn’t flinch, but her arm turned to steel; the Warden removed her hand.</p><p>“Do you have an extra sword?” she asked. </p><p>“Pardon?”<br/><br/>“A sword. If there will be demons, I would like a weapon.”</p><p>“But you are a mage. And you said that you are blind," Cassandra intoned flatly, clearly suspicious.<br/><br/>“Yes. And I want a sword...or a set of daggers, if you would prefer not to part with a larger blade.”<br/><br/>Silence, for a moment. And then - “Why should I trust you?”</p><p>The Warden thrust her Fade-touched hand out into the space between them. Evidence, leverage...whatever you wanted to call it, she was prepared to wield it.  “None of us has a choice,” she said, repeating the woman’s words from earlier.<br/><br/>A tense silence stretched between the two of them. Finally, Cassandra relented with a sudden huff of breath. “I suppose I should remember you did not attempt to run,” the woman allowed.</p><p>The Warden smirked. </p><p>The warrior turned away, rifling with something on the ground nearby. Cassandra turned back and placed a set of daggers into the Warden’s waiting hands. "I assume you know what you are doing," the warrior groused. <br/><br/>Running a claw across their length, she tested their weight, and found them to be nicely balanced, if a little on the light side. Likely standard soldier issue. They would do, for the moment.</p><p>“What now?” she asked.</p><p>Cassandra started walking, and the Warden followed. “Now we must meet up with the others. Come. It should not be far.”<br/><br/>They moved forward, across the frozen lake and into the wilderness beyond. More demons fell from the Rift as they pressed on. Daggers in hand, she threw herself into each and every fray. She fell back into familiar patterns of attack and dodge and parry, throwing barriers and fireballs into the swathe of destruction she left behind her. The new weapons required a slight adjustment to her style; she had grown used to the lengths of her sword and dirk. But she drew from prior experience, her initial training, and allowed magic to make up the difference. Her body sang as adrenaline pumped through her veins, overpowering even the burn of the Blight. </p><p>The demons were dead before Cassandra’s sword ever got into range.</p><p>They waded through the snow and the Wraiths, and the Warden only fell back so that she could follow Cassandra down the trails. She counted at least eighteen more of the recently-dead along the path.</p><p>It was a relatively short hike, all things considered; by the time they reached a set of narrow stone stairs, the rogue mage had been thoroughly acquainted with her new daggers. </p><p>“We’re getting close to the rift. You can hear the fighting,” Cassandra proclaimed.<br/><br/>The clash of metal and the guttural screams of the soldiers were clearly audible in the chill air. When they reached the top of the stairs, however, something else caught the Warden’s attention.</p><p>Or rather, several somethings.</p><p>A tear in the Veil gleamed a vibrant ephemeral green. It was not as big or as boisterous as the Breach, but it seemed no less ominous. And where the Breach loomed large and lascivious in the sky, this smaller rift burned brighter, more keenly. The rifts, the Breach...they were too near to the Fade for the Warden's preference. She had only just escaped it; she did not want to go back.</p><p>The mark on her palm pulsed even as the rift spat out a violent bevvy of demons. She felt it from the tip of her fingers up to her jawline, a bastard cross between a tingle, a pain, and a buzzing sensation all in one. Cassandra took the demons' appearance as her cue. The warrior jumped down from the short wall and threw herself into the fray, alongside a handful of other spirits - or rather, <em>people - </em>who fought beside the soldiers.</p><p>One burned brighter than the rest. A mage, judging by the way they manipulated the strings of magic. The Warden allowed her gaze to linger, impervious to the hazards of the fight. Something about the mage was...different. Their connection to the Fade was quite strong. It was like, but unlike, Cassandra, whose aura glowed so near to Faith that they might be mistaken at first glance; the mage had a distinctive sort of shine to them. Something unique, pure; almost a spirit in and of itself. She had never seen pride and despair so tightly entwined. She couldn't help but stare, sorting through two lifetimes worth of memories, perplexed when she came up blank. <br/><br/>But in her distraction over the mage, she had allowed herself to be flanked by demons. </p><p>A Shade screeched in triumphant glee as its claws raked across the Warden’s side. Pain flared - and awakened annoyance. She whirled to face the hapless demon, her face contorted in a snarl. Anger and frustration at her own distraction fed the flames that immolated the unlucky Shade. It writhed in a pillar of fire, shrieking as it was reduced to ash. Her fingers flicked outward as she clutched the wound at her side, and the other demons fell to the inferno of her ire. The heat from the flames washed across her face, but she only dispelled the fire once the demons’ screams had faded into the Beyond. The other combatants froze, nonplussed as their enemies suddenly burst into flame and fell into melting puddles in front of them - but the mage stepped close.</p><p>“Quickly! Before more come through!” He - the voice was male - grabbed for her arm, shoving the Fade mark up towards the rift. The connection was made instantly; like called to like, and the Fade ached to rejoin itself. She tugged experimentally on the glowing ropes of magic that sprang up between the two, and immediately the mark flared to life. It hurt - but when she pulled harder, the rift slammed shut with a definitive crack.</p><p>Ah. There <em>was</em> a connection, then. Useful.</p><p>Silence fell, a sense of wonder and awe suffusing the former battlefield. She flexed her hand - and growled when the movement tugged at her wounds.</p><p>“You are injured. Please, allow me.” The male mage had released her hand, and already he gathered healing magic to seal the dripping gashes on her side. The Warden was silent, and allowed him to complete the spell; his magic sang with a voice at once ancient and full of sorrow. It was bitter on her tongue, but lingered with an interesting aftertaste. Perhaps if she could taste just a little bit more…</p><p>The mage stepped away almost abruptly, as though he could sense the train her thoughts had taken. She tilted her head, considering.<br/><br/>“It worked! Does that mean the mark could close the Breach itself?” Cassandra asked, her voice hopeful, even excited.<br/><br/>The mage’s magic had retreated. The Warden was left hungry.</p><p>“Possibly,” he allowed, his smooth voice giving nothing away. She realized that her attention was fixated on him, and she shook herself. </p><p>“Good to know! Here I thought we’d be ass-deep in demons forever.” This was another of the spirits that had helped during the battle. The Warden stilled, attention moving from the mage to the...dwarf? The spiritual signature was faint, compact. Dwarf made sense - they were less connected to the Fade. The new spirit swaggered closer. “Varric Tethras: rogue, storyteller, and occasionally unwelcome tagalong.”</p><p>A pause. This name, she knew. He had no reason to recognize her, of course - not in this travesty of a timeline. But Varric had always been one of her favorite companions of DA2. It was...surprising, that the game developers carried him through to Inquisition, but she could not say that she disapproved. His presence was welcome....but what was he doing here, of all places? What about Kirkwall?</p><p>She nodded in greeting, and offered the rogue a short smile. “And hello to Bianca, too,” she offered thinly.</p><p>The dwarf’s aura flushed with pleasure. “Ahh, a fan of my work, I see?” he chuckled.</p><p>“Something like that.”<br/><br/>The mage shifted, and cloth brushed against itself as he leaned towards her. “My name is Solas, if there are to be introductions. I’m pleased to see you still live.”</p><p>Varric scoffed. “He means, ‘I kept that mark from killing you while you slept.'”</p><p>The Warden tilted her head, considering the mage. “Ah. Are you the healer that neglected to tell Cassandra that I was blind?”<br/><br/>“Hold up, you’re blind?” Varric gaped. “Could’a fooled me. With how you fight? I thought the scar was just a decorative thing. I knew a guy who used to do it for the 'intimidation factor'. ”</p><p>“I suspected that there were certain truths you might wish kept private,” the mage offered stiffly. </p><p>She weighed his words. He knew who - or at least, <em>what</em> - she was...and he was keeping her identity a secret. The question being, of course...how? And also, why? To protect her? To use the knowledge against her later? She weighed the options, and finally shrugged.</p><p>“You have my thanks, then.” Her words were reluctant, but the mage inclined his head gracefully; she could hear the faint rasp of his jaw against the collar of his tunic. In the end, her questions didn't matter. The mark on her hand could kill her, and then none of this would matter at all.</p><p>He turned towards Cassandra, whose aura was gradually growing spikier the longer the conversation wore on. “Cassandra, you should know: the magic involved here is unlike any I have ever seen. Your prisoner is a mage, but I find it difficult to imagine any mage having such power.” The words seemed to mollify the warrior.</p><p>But then the Warden shrugged all over again. “Technically, I do.”<br/><br/>The others froze. She could feel their eyes boring into her - especially Solas'. His aura rippled with quiet warning. She ignored it.</p><p>“Uh. You’re not really admitting that you caused this whole mess, are you?” Varric ventured.</p><p>She snorted. “No. If we are just talking about the sheer magnitude of magic, then it’s…possible. But using so much power at once would drain me entirely. If my magic had caused the Breach, I would be dead, not traipsing around the Temple with a shiny new hand accessory.” She waved the fade mark at them for emphasis. If it had truly been so easy to punch a hole in the Veil, she would have escaped the Fade long before now. But then, as now, the effort meant nothing if she wasn't around to actually enjoy the fruits of her labor.</p><p>The others were silent as they digested this bit of info. Solas let out a slow, even breath.</p><p>“Well, this should be fun, then! You can just round up all the demons, and I’ll put my feet up and watch from the back. I'll pick off the stragglers,” Varric announced, his voice purposefully boisterous. "Hope you don't mind if I take notes."<br/><br/>Cassandra immediately balked at the idea of Varric accompanying them. “Absolutely not. Your help is appreciated, Varric, but…”</p><p>Varric scoffed. “Have you been in the valley lately, Seeker? Your soldiers aren’t in control anymore. You need me.”<br/><br/>Cassandra made a disgusted noise. “Ugh. Fine. Let’s move, then. We must get to the forward camp quickly.”<br/><br/>The Warden nodded. Cassandra, used to leading the way, began to climb down over a patch of rocky terrain - which turned out to be a heaping pile of rubble. It shifted underfoot as their weight bore down on it; the Warden moved especially slowly, feeling out each step before committing her weight. Varric noticed, and politely helped steer her over the worst of it. The group was quiet for several minutes as they continued on, and then -<br/><br/>“By the way. What’s your name, Sparky?”<br/><br/>The Warden tilted her head. <em>Sparky?</em>  Oh. Nicknames, right. That was Varric's thing.</p><p>“I...don’t really have one,” she answered after a short pause.</p><p>It sounded like Varric slipped on a loose piece of stone. “What do you mean you don’t have one?”<br/><br/>“The person I used to be doesn’t exist anymore. The name doesn’t fit,” she explained.<br/><br/>Cassandra scoffed. “She is an abomination. I am not surprised that she doesn’t have a proper name.”<br/><br/>“Technically, Cassandra, she is not an abomination. There is no separate spirit housed within her body,” the mage - Solas - corrected.<br/><br/>“Well that’s a relief,” Varric groused.<br/><br/>Cassandra’s aura flashed green. The nameless Warden struggled to put a name to the color. Affront? Disbelief? “Then what of the claws? And her eyes? And the <em> magic</em>. You cannot mean to tell me -”<br/><br/>“Everything has a name. It is just a matter of finding a suitable one,” Solas offered quietly.</p><p>“Look, Sparky - if you don’t have a name, why don’t you just pick something? That’s what I do,” Varric quipped.</p><p>She thought on it for a moment, carefully following Cassandra’s trail over the snow. How much should she say? How much <em> could </em> she say? Kat had died. Urthemiel had, too. She was not willing to relinquish either identity, but neither of them were right on their own anymore. Would the world of Thedas accept a once-dead Warden? Would they accept a human Archdemon? These were the questions Solas had already asked, and he'd chosen to keep her identity a secret. Would she - should she - do the same?<br/><br/>She sighed. Cassandra already thought she was an abomination. She would not test the woman further. They could worry about the rest once the Breach was sealed - assuming she was still alive by then, that is. For now, she had to give them a name.<br/><br/>“Katriel.” The word broke over her lips, new and unfamiliar. There. Katriel sounded...decent enough. <em> Kat </em> herine and Urthem <em> iel</em>. <em> Once two, now one. </em> She fingered the hilts of her daggers, and remembered, “Once, my friends called me Kat.” She paused, and looked towards her companions. Even with her eyes shut, she saw them bright against the inside of her eyelids.  “Will that work?”<br/><br/>“It will do nicely. A pleasure to formally make your acquaintance, Katriel,” Solas murmured.<br/><br/>“I like it. Now, keep an eye out. Maybe we can find you some spare armor in all this mess,” Varric noted. </p><p>She - Katriel - frowned. “What’s wrong with my armor?” she huffed.<br/><br/>Amusement rippled through the dwarf’s aura. “No offense, but I’ve seen street urchins in Kirkwall with better gear than what you’ve got. Those rags wouldn’t be fit to line the bottom of a Mabari kennel.”</p><p>Kat’s frown deepened. “They’re old.”<br/><br/>The dwarf chuckled. “I can tell,” he teased.</p><p>“Sometimes old things hold best onto our memories, Master Tethras. Casting aside the old in favor of the new is not always as easy as it seems,” Solas noted. </p><p>Katriel allowed her attention to linger on the mage - and she wondered what memories he was referencing. <br/><br/>Hers...or his?</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Aaand here we go. Apologies for the prevalence of in-game dialogue for the companions; I honestly felt like I couldn't leave it out. But now we've got a definitive name for our MC, and she's well on her way to the Breach! Strange that Leliana didn't recognize her, isn't it? Don't worry, it was on purpose ;P</p><p>Also, peep that Katriel headshot from one of my friends! She made her look sooooo good I can't even tell you how excited I am!!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Fancy Footwork</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <h3>9:30 Dragon<br/>Denerim</h3><p>She slept on the streets of Denerim.<br/><br/>Some small, desperate part of her still held onto the hope that this was all just a very long, drawn out dream. She was sure that she’d wake up any moment, clean and comfortable in her own bed. She’d go to school, tell her friends about her grand Dragon Age delusion, and they’d tease her about her obsession as they choked down the regular cafeteria slop. In a few months, she was going to graduate from high school, and then she would be off to college in the fall.<br/><br/>After all, Denerim wasn’t <em> real. </em>Dragon Age wasn't <em>real</em>. It was a story, a game - complete fiction! This was all a dream. It had to be. There was no way she'd gone to sleep in her own bed, and then....what, magically transported herself to Thedas? That sort of thing was firmly in the realm of fanfiction and fantasy, not real life. She was a Dragon Age addict, sure, but even she wasn't wholly happy about this circumstance. The story was cool and adventurous and magical on the television screen. The reality of things was decidedly less so.</p><p>But as much as her brain wanted to reassure her that she was just in the middle of a very long lucid daydream, there was too many things that screamed otherwise. She couldn't quite let herself fall into the comforting lie of disbelief. She bled, here. She felt pain. She got hungry, and thirsty, and dirty. There were no convenient time skips, or blurry training montages. She went to bed sore, and woke up stiff. No matter how much or how often she pinched herself, she didn’t wake up. And what kind of dream would force her to live through the horror of chamber pots and medieval sanitation? </p><p>When she invariably went to sleep, cold and cramped on the hard packed ground instead of in the safety and warmth of her own bedroom, she woke up in the same spot every day. It always took her a few minutes to gather herself before she was ready to face the world of Thedas - and if it took too long, Daveth would eventually come to fetch her. The man was always quick with a sassy comment and a gentle smile, but sometimes she cursed him for refusing to let her wallow in her own misery.</p><p>She’d buckle on her ragtag bits of armor (she slept in her clothes - only an idiot would sleep naked on the streets of Denerim) and with daggers in hand she’d head out onto the streets. Her hands had grown hard and calloused, her arms were riddled with small nicks and scratches, and her skin had become tan and weathered from living out in the open. Competitive fencing had nothing on dagger work, and Kat was shaping up to be a damn fine duelist, according to Daveth and Kestrel. It helped that there was little to do during the day other than train. Short thieving jobs punctuated by long stretches of downtime became her norm - so rather than wait around for something to do, Kat threw herself into her training.</p><p>Her awareness of time ricocheted between hazy disbelief and periods of razor-sharp adrenaline. The backstreets were seedy, and life was hard. Morals had very little place in this world of cutthroats, bandits and entitled noblemen. Kat got most of her coin by pickpocketing valuables from clueless tourists or uppity nobles, and she wasn’t above stealing from the odd inattentive merchant or shopkeeper, but she didn’t balk from the bloodier jobs, either.</p><p>The first time she’d killed someone, it had been an accident. She had been contracted to steal a certain handkerchief off of a visiting noblewoman’s bureau. What should have been a simple snatch and grab turned into a quick and dirty fight with the woman’s unfortunate paramour, home too soon from some illicit debauchery. The paunchy mouth-breather had rushed into the room with a yell, launching at her with both hands outstretched. Her dagger had slid into the side of his neck before he’d even gotten within arm’s reach. In a panic, Kat had snatched up the handkerchief and left the man lying in the middle of the room, choking on his own blood. She’d climbed out the window and promptly vomited into a nearby alley, stumbling back to her hideaway without even returning to her employer to collect her pay for the job.</p><p>Of course, her shock and horror could only last so long in the face of a starving stomach. She’d returned to her contractor two days later - and had been gifted a bonus, on top of her usual fee, for offing the noblewoman’s illicit lover. Apparently, her employer had wanted the handkerchief as evidence to prove his wife had been having an affair. Removing the problem prematurely had solved all of the noble’s problems in one fell swoop - and since she'd had the foresight to bring him the handkerchief <em>and</em> kill the potential cuckold, there would be no reason to look further into the murder.The nobility was satisfied, her employer was vindicated, and his wife had been duly chastised. </p><p>It took Kat several nights before she could close her eyes without picturing the blood on her hands or the look in her victim’s eyes as his life leaked out all over the floor.</p><p>She was more careful now. She'd killed once already; it was easier the second time, and easier still the third. Even so, she never took a life lightly. She only killed when she had to; if someone died at the end of her blade, it wouldn’t be an accident. She took her time, cautious to the point that sometimes she spent days surveying her target, learning their habits and their schedules, before she risked making a move. Her jobs were rarely completed <em> swiftly </em> - but she was never caught. <br/><br/>Today was the same as any other. Kat woke from her nest in her rooftop alcove, solemnly contemplating the naked rooftops until the general hustle of the city peeled her out of hiding. She leaped down from the roofs, and mingled with the general market crowd for a while, blending in with the milling throng. She paid a single copper from a bread bun warm out of the oven, munching on the rare splurge with the added benefit of knowing it had been rightfully purchased. Sometimes, she could not afford to be so generous.<br/><br/>It was odd, she thought. When she was younger - back in the real world - she had never wanted for anything. She'd been adopted as a baby, spared the endless string of foster homes that were the all-too-common fate of other wards of the state. Of course, adoption wasn't exactly cheap; her parents had been well off. Her father had worked a middle-management position at a large insurance brokerage, and her mother made bank as an interior decorator. As far as Kat was concerned, she had basically won the adoption lottery. Her parents had indulged her every whim. Brand name clothes, the newest gaming systems, her own fencing equipment....the fact that they had even <em>indulged</em> her desire to learn fencing, rather than join the cheerleading team, or head the debate club. Kat had always known that she was fortunate, and she never took it for granted. She threw herself into her schoolwork, and between studying and fencing practice, she volunteered at the stables down the road. She never did drugs, and never stayed out too late. <br/><br/>But it was the little things - like never running out of her favorite snacks, never having to worry about holes in her socks, or always having a bit of spending money from her allowance - that really hammered home how very pampered she'd been. Waking up in Denerim had been a harsh wake up call, in more ways than one. It was no wonder Daveth still assumed that she was some noble's runaway heiress...by this world's standards, he wasn't too far off.</p><p>As she walked through the dusty streets, Kat idly considered the weight of her purse, wondering if she had enough coin for a room at the Pearl tonight. The other members of her ragtag rooftop crew thought it was a waste of precious silver, but she refused to give up the pleasure of a hot bath and a warm bed. She owned precious little clothing and sometimes she went without a proper meal for a bit, but Kat was dogged in her habits. As often as she could - usually only about once a week - she stayed at the inn, washed away the dirt of the street and curled into the blissful straw mattress. The rooms she could afford weren’t luxurious by any stretch of the imagination, but compared to her roadside nest, they might as well have been. For a night, at least, she could feel like a normal person.</p><p>Her blissful musing was interrupted by a commotion near the center of the square. "Got you this time, you vagrant weasel!" Kat instinctively stepped into the shadow of a building, melding with the pooling shadows as the guardsmen tackled a man to the ground. She couldn’t quite see beyond the press of bodies gathered in the market, but there was a lot of yelling, and Kat rolled her eyes as she moved to get a better vantage point. It looked like a thief had managed to get themselves caught. Kat snorted and turned her attention back to the seeded roll in her hand.</p><p>“Hold a moment, if you please.”</p><p>The voice was loud, authoritative. It sounded familiar, though Kat couldn’t quite place her finger on why. The Guards certainly took notice; while one lay sprawled out on top of the unfortunate thief, pinning him to the stone, the other stood and saluted an armored man standing nearby. “Warden, ser! Daveth is wanted for several counts of petty thievery in the city. We will be taking this criminal to the prisons, where we will be certain to place him under strict guard.”<br/><br/>A chill went down Kat’s spine. They'd caught Daveth? <br/><br/>...Wait, <em>Warden</em>?</p><p>White noise whined in Kat's ear, but Daveth was always quick with a quip. “What, don’t want me slippin’ out from under you again, Lawrence? Come on now, tell me - have you replaced those bung locks in the dungeons yet?” Daveth's words were muffled and strained under the weight of the guardsman.<br/><br/>A bearded man, wearing well-worn but well-made armor, stepped beyond the circle of the crowd. His voice was the same strong baritone that had asked the guards to hold. “As the wounded party in the attempted crime, I would ask you to release ser Daveth into my custody.”</p><p>Kat stood frozen. Her eyes skimmed over the bearded man before landing on Daveth - and then swooped back to the swarthy warrior, moving back and forth as though she was a spectator at a tennis tournament.<br/><br/>Duncan. The bearded, armored warrior was Duncan.</p><p>
  <em> Fuck. Shit. Christ on a motherfucking cracker.  </em>
</p><p>She shouldn’t be surprised. This was in the script, wasn’t it? Daveth was caught trying to cut Duncan’s purse in Denerim, and the Warden conscripted him right out from under the guardsmen. They went to Ostagar, met the person who would eventually be the Hero of Ferelden, underwent the Joining, and then...Daveth died.<br/><br/>Kat felt her heart ice over. In the game, Daveth and Jory’s deaths were an afterthought, a means by which the true risks of the Joining were hammered home. Sometimes it was even a comical moment, if she'd stripped her party members of all their gear before triggering the cutscene. But for her, now...her friend’s death wouldn’t be an afterthought. She wouldn't be laughing.<br/><br/>She watched as the guards deliberated - but in the end, they couldn't gainsay a Grey Warden. They let Daveth stand, and a few words were exchanged that Kat couldn't hear. After a moment, Duncan clapped Daveth on the shoulder, and the two of them left the square. Deprived of a show, the remaining crowd and guardsmen dispersed, too. Kat didn't stay to watch them go.</p><hr/><p><br/>Duncan caught her two days into the trail.</p><p>She’d been following them at a discreet distance. Staying hidden in the city was well and good, but she wasn’t even remotely practiced at stealthing through the wilderness. The roads surrounding Denerim were all mostly well-trodden, interspersed with well-maintained farmsteads and noble fiefdoms. She had a harder time of it then, when the open countryside betrayed her with every breath. The woods were kinder. The trees provided more cover, and the shadows were deeper. She slept in low-hanging branches, and crept from tree to tree as she followed in the men’s wake.</p><p>Daveth had gone with Duncan rather than rot in the Denerim dungeon. Given a choice between the two options, Kat wasn’t sure which was preferable - and it hardly mattered now, anyways. The events of Origins had officially begun. Could she change anything? Was it all written in stone? Would Daveth die, no matter what she did?</p><p>No. She refused to believe that. After all, there was no character named Katherine in the events of Origins. Just by being here, she was changing the story. Which meant that she <em> could </em> change the story. Daveth didn’t have to die. <em> Duncan </em> didn’t have to die. </p><p>Desperate hope welled within her heart, refusing to be quashed by cruel reality.<br/><br/>Night fell on the third day since Denerim. Scale had always been distorted in the games, conveniently skipped over in loading screens, so Kat had no real way to tell how far away Ostagar might be from Denerim proper. She sighed quietly, prepared to vault herself up into one of the nearby trees to weather out the night. Duncan and Daveth were setting up camp; the Warden hadn’t even bothered keeping Daveth in manacles. What would be the point? He’d officially been conscripted. If he tried to escape, he’d be a wanted man. </p><p>Kat shifted, poised in the dark.</p><p>“You can come out now,” a voice called.</p><p>Kat held still, frozen in the shadows.</p><p>Duncan chuckled. He wasn’t facing her - but Daveth was looking around in confusion. “You’ve been following us since Denerim. You may as well come sit beside the fire. There’s not much, but I’ve got some provisions to spare.”</p><p>Her heart dropped to her feet. He’d known she was there the whole time? </p><p>The gig was up. Cautiously, she crept out of her cover. She sheepishly ducked into the circle of firelight - and Daveth swore. “Andraste’s tits, Kat! What're you doing here?”<br/><br/>Kat frowned at her friend. “If you think I’m going to let you be carted off to the Wardens without me, then you’ve got less brains than an addled nug.”</p><p>Duncan had finally turned to face her. In person, the man was even more handsome than the games portrayed. Swarthy skin, well-kept facial hair, and sharp, piercing eyes adorned a face that was well weathered and strikingly masculine. He was also probably about fifteen or twenty years older than she was, but he bore the years well.</p><p>“A friend of yours, I take it?” the Warden asked, his voice deceptively mild. He paused. “Or your daughter, perhaps?”<br/><br/>“What? Ew.” “What? No, she’s not my - what do you mean, 'ew'?”<br/><br/>Duncan chuckled, and Kat ducked her head as she hid her own laugh. Daveth used her inattention to pull her close in a smothering bear hug, his lanky arms strong against her thin frame. “Fool girl,” the thief whispered. “What were you thinking?”<br/><br/>Kat huffed, pulling away from her friend. She couldn’t quite help the faint smile that pulled at her lips, touched that Daveth seemed to care so much. “I was thinking that you’re the only reason I’m alive right now,” she noted gently. “Throwing you to the wolves seemed like a poor way to pay you back.”</p><p>Duncan pointedly cleared his throat, and Kat winced. “Uh. Not that <em>you’re</em> a wolf. Or I guess you’d be a <em>nice</em> wolf, at least. Like a mabari, maybe? I mean, you haven’t killed either of us yet, so…” She swallowed. “Sorry. I’ll shut up now."</p><p>Okay, so maybe she was a little star struck. Sue her.<br/><br/>Fortunately, Duncan laughed. “No need to apologize, I know what you mean. Unfortunately, it would be best if you returned to Denerim. The loyalty you’ve shown for your friend is commendable, but the Wardens are no place for younglings.”</p><p>Daveth finally released her, and Kat frowned. “I wasn’t aware that the Wardens had a minimum age limit,” she complained pointedly.</p><p>Daveth stepped up, his hand on Kat’s shoulder. “Kat’s been living on the streets, Duncan. She might look all soft and innocent, but a meaner hand with a dagger you never did see. Her form is bettern’ mine, even, and I’ve been trainin’ years longer. She’s a quick study, her instincts are good, and deserves better than what’s left for her back ‘n the city.”</p><p>Kat blinked. “Why Daveth, I didn’t know you cared,” she quipped, dramatically batting her eyelashes at Daveth even as she ignored the subtle flame of the warmth in her cheeks. The thief scoffed at her, playfully tousling her hair. Kat couldn’t quite maintain the scowl she was going for, batting Daveth's hands away from her head.</p><p>Duncan eyed them both speculatively. “It’s true, those sorts of skills would not be unwelcome in the Wardens. But I still don’t think - “<br/><br/>Kat interrupted him. “I’m eighteen, Duncan. And I would rather come with you and Daveth than go back to Denerim alone. There’s a Blight coming, right? Wardens don’t conscript without reason. If you’re fighting against the darkspawn, then I want to help.”<br/><br/>Okay, so she was cheating just a bit. She hadn’t heard anything at all about Wardens or an impending Blight in Denerim. But she had several playthroughs of Origins to back her up - and now that hanging back and working from the shadows wasn’t an option, then she’d just have to be right in the thick of it. </p><p>Part of her quailed at the thought of possibly undergoing the Joining. An even bigger part of her shivered at the idea of meeting a darkspawn in person. She collected both of those parts in a little box and locked them away to deal with later.</p><p>Duncan rubbed his chin. “I’ll think on it. For now, why don’t you sit? Sleeping in the trees these last few nights can’t have been comfortable.”<br/><br/>Kat nodded, gratefully folding her legs to settle beside Daveth on the ground by the fire. The warmth was welcome, and soon enough they had a small pot of watery potato stew boiling on the heat. Duncan passed out spoons and bowls, ladling out the makeshift meal into equal portions as Daveth tried to fill the silence with his own off brand of humor.<br/><br/>"A darkspawn, an abomination and a pony walk into a bar... stop me if you've heard this one." </p><p>Kat groaned, and playfully shoved his arm. It was easy enough for her to lapse back into silent thoughtfulness as the two men talked, their voices rough and comforting in the darkness.<br/><br/>Suddenly, a thought struck her. She frowned, the spoon poised between the bowl and her mouth. “Duncan? If you knew I was following you the whole time, why did you only say something just now?”<br/><br/>Duncan smirked at her from across the flames. “It’s always nice to watch a fellow rogue at work.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>By the time Kat woke the next morning, Duncan was already dismantling the camp. Daveth, as per usual, was snoring loud enough to wake the next town. Kat rolled out of her bedroll, automatically reaching for her daggers even as she blinked the sleep out of her eyes.</p><p>“Good morning, Miss Kat,” Duncan called. Kat waved vaguely in the Warden Commander’s direction, wading off beyond the nearest trees to do her business before bothering with morning niceties. By the time she got back to the campsite, Daveth had finally been peeled out of his bedroll, yawning as Duncan passed out the hard tack that would take the place of breakfast. Honestly, Kat was long passed the point where she would complain about having food of any kind; she gratefully took the trail rations, thanking Duncan with perhaps more enthusiasm than was strictly necessary.</p><p>“I’ve decided to let you come along - “ Duncan began. Kat looked up hopefully, her face already breaking into a relieved smile, “ - <em> if </em> you can prove to me that you are as skilled a fighter as Daveth claims.”</p><p>Kat’s smile fell, and her eyes narrowed - but after a moment, she nodded. That was fair. When all was said and done, the Grey Wardens were soldiers, and they were heading straight for a battlefield at Ostagar. “Alright. How do you want me then?”<br/><br/>Daveth coughed. “Kat. Word choice, there.”<br/><br/>It took her a moment - but then she flushed. “No, no! That’s not - I meant - It wasn’t - “ Both Duncan and Daveth were already laughing at her. “Ugh! I hate you.”</p><p>Duncan chuckled. “Worry not. I knew what you meant, and the test should be simple enough. You only have to spar with me; I will assess your skills, and see if you are worthy of becoming a Grey Warden.”</p><p>Kat paused. Her? Fight Duncan? She was already bouncing on the balls of her feet, excitement coursing through her veins. “Sounds fun,” she opined, her grin fit to split her face.<br/><br/>Daveth cleared his throat. “I’ll just wait over here then, shall I? Try not to look so nervous, Kat. Anyone would think you weren’t excited,” the thief quipped. Kat stuck her tongue out at him, already following Duncan a few feet away to a nearby clearing. </p><p>The Warden unsheathed the longsword at his back, though Kat noted that he’d left his dagger and shield back in the camp. It would be easy to mistake him for a warrior - but Kat had read the Calling, and she knew better. She palmed both of her daggers, already slipping into a deceptive high guard stance.<br/><br/>“We will fight to yield, or to third blood,” Duncan commanded. Kat nodded to show that she understood, and the Warden tightened his grip on his blade. “Begin.”</p><p>Kat cocked a sardonic brow at the older man - and then burst into motion. She charged forward, daggers chiming off of the broad flat of his sword...and the spar began in earnest.<em> Feint left dagger to left arm. Step behind, flank on the right. Slip into stealth in his blindspot. Parry - he caught it. Break away, thrust to right shoulder. Dodge - </em>Kat exhaled roughly as the pommel of Duncan’s sword caught her heavily in the stomach. Too slow, too slow. She leaped back, only to charge forward again, light on her feet and heavy in her heart.</p><p>Dodge, thrust and parry became an intricate dance. Adrenaline spiked in Kat’s veins, and she employed every trick in her arsenal, pulling no punches. First blood went to Duncan - a thin slice along her forearm that trickled blood and made her grip wet with it. Kat paid him back twice over; a swift kick to the pressure point on his inner thigh distracted him long enough that she managed two small nicks to the back of the man’s neck, a light kiss from each of her daggers before she danced away to safety. The man was far better protected than Kat; the only openings were his face, and the thin gaps between the plates in his armor.</p><p>He had better reach with his sword than Kat had with her daggers, so she pressed for close quarters. Duncan switched his grip to a two handed one, knocking her back with a hard elbow to her sternum. Kat rocked with the momentum, tumbling <em> under </em> instead of <em> away. </em> She caught Duncan’s leg between both of her own and twisted her body, her right foot planted in his midsection for leverage enough to force him <em> down</em>.</p><p>The Warden fell backward with a heavy crash of armor - and Kat was already there, daggers poised just below his throat. She was breathing heavily, and her injured arm was shaking - but she kept the point of her dagger steady, blowing a loose tendril of dirty blonde hair out of her eyes as she kept her gaze trained on the Warden beneath her. There was a heavy moment of silence between them, eyes locked - and then Duncan grinned.</p><p>“It’s been some time since I’ve been so thoroughly outmatched. I think you have well proven your mettle,” Duncan allowed.<br/><br/>Kat released a breath of tension, her muscles going immediately slack. “Does that mean…?”<br/><br/>“Yes,” he confirmed, his grin tugging at the darkness behind his beard.</p><p>Kat whooped. “Yes! Oh my Go - Maker, thank you!”</p><p>Duncan gave her an odd look, noticing her slip - but Kat didn’t care. She’d done it! Hah! Take that, stupid fencing coach! Shoddy follow through, her left tit! She’d just beat <em> Duncan. </em></p><p>The Warden shifted uncomfortably on the ground, and Kat realized that she was still standing over him. She hastily stepped to the side, and with a sheepish grin, Kat sheathed her daggers and stretched out a hand to help Duncan up. The Warden rose to his feet, facing Kat with a morose expression that managed to kill her excitement in one fell swoop. “The Wardens aren’t a place for the faint of heart - and it is not a mantle you can ever cast aside. We will be going into battle, and the darkspawn are no small threat. Are you certain this is what you want?”<br/><br/>Kat nodded resolutely. “More than anything.”</p><p><em> Though really, if you had an ice cream sundae in your backpack, that might win over becoming a Warden. God, I miss chocolate. And coffee. Starbucks, I ache for thee. My kingdom for a latte. </em><br/><br/>“Very well then. You and Daveth will both undergo the Joining once we have reached Ostagar. We are not very far off now; we should arrive some time after midmorning tomorrow. Be prepared - the king intends to stage a battle against the darkspawn there, and the Wardens will be joining his army.”</p><p>Duncan’s news sobered Kat and Daveth of any excitement. In silence, they packed up the rest of the camp, bandaged the cut on Kat's arm, and headed out along the same trail they’d been following the day before. Kat decided that she liked this straightforward version of travel much more than skulking through the undergrowth.</p><p>After a while, she couldn’t help herself - she started to pester Duncan for more information.</p><p>“How long have you been a Warden, Duncan?” she asked.<br/><br/>“Long enough. I was not much older than you when I was first introduced to the Order.”</p><p>“Are there many others at Ostagar? Recruits, I mean,” she pressed, keeping her tone carefully neutral.<br/><br/>“Another recruit, Ser Jory, will be joining us once we’ve reached the ruins. Otherwise, you will meet my fellow Warden Alistair, who will be mentoring you through the Joining. We will have little time once we have arrived - we must begin the ritual immediately.”<br/><br/>Kat frowned. Wait. That couldn’t be right. In the game, the player - the eventual Hero of Ferelden - was the last to arrive at Ostagar with Duncan. Daveth and Jory were already there, waiting for them. But this...this sounded like she and Daveth would be the last to arrive.<br/><br/>“Really? You didn’t find anyone else?” she asked with a hint of trepidation.<br/><br/>Duncan shook his head. “Unfortunately, I have had little luck in recruiting. The Wardens are still viewed with some suspicion in Ferelden. Most do not believe my warnings about the impending Blight.”</p><p>Kat lapsed into silence, frantically trying to make sense of the situation. Maybe...maybe Duncan would go out to gather more recruits once more before the battle? Or maybe, in this version, the Hero was recruited by another Warden? </p><p>Where in Thedas was the Hero of Ferelden?</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Ooooh, you guys probably expected the rest of the inquisition prologue, huh? Sorry to disappoint, my lovelies. But we’re still in the tutorial phase. ;P Can’t rush all the juicy stuff right off the bat. So I hope you enjoyed OG Kat angst and her tiny duel against Duncan instead!</p><p>Some of you might notice a hint I threw in towards the bottom of the chapter as it relates to the art I posted LAST chapter. Let me know if you caught it ;P</p><p>But also!! Omg guys over 50 kudos? Thank you so much to anyone and everyone who is sticking with me so far! All of your comments and encouragement are fantastic, and I appreciate you all SO MUCH.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Closing the Breach</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <h3>9:41 Dragon<br/>Haven</h3><p>“Glad you brought me now, Seeker?”<br/><br/>Varric’s voice was rough rubble against dark velvet. Katriel decided that she liked the sound of it - and remembered that she always had, even when she had been on Earth playing through Dragon Age 2. Even through a screen, Varric had a certain rough charm, a palpable sense of charisma. In another life, she recalled being disappointed that the developers hadn’t made the dwarf a romance option. </p><p>Cassandra seemed less appreciative of Varric’s raspy sarcasm than Kat; the warrior made another disgusted noise, and drew her blade as she waded down the incline ahead. </p><p>A Greater Shade led a small group of demons in front of them. Between Kat and the other three, it was a relatively quick battle, even without the whole of Kat’s attention on the fight. The Breach kept distracting her, bright against the darkness; sunlight stole in between her closed eyelids, and the shifting interplay of Fade and physical light was making her feel nauseated. That, the omnipresent pain in her hand, and the fact that she was constantly forced to redirect and reign in her magic to avoid accidentally hurting one of her own companions was swiftly contributing to Katriel’s worsening mood.</p><p>As Varric dispatched the last Wraith with a well-timed shot from Bianca (Kat heard the telltale<em> thwang </em> of the crossbow’s firing mechanism, and then the Wraith disappeared from her spirit-sight), she decided that enough was enough. She couldn’t do anything about two of her problems, but there was an easy solution to one of them. With a frown, she reached below her ragged leather breastplate, and snagged the cotton undershirt that lay between her armor and her skin. With a jerk, she ripped off a long strip of fabric.</p><p>“What are you doing?” Cassandra demanded, her voice accusatory.<br/><br/>“The Breach is too bright, and the light is hurting my eyes,” Kat answered shortly, tying the makeshift blindfold tightly over her eyes and behind her head. It helped, a little; the added barrier between her eyes and the light left her in a more comfortable, all-encompassing darkness, and the relief was almost immediate.<br/><br/>“Well, that’ll help with the weird glowy thing they do, at least,” Varric noted with false cheer. </p><p>Kat frowned. Weird glowy thing?</p><p>Solas’s voice interrupted her puzzlement. “You can see the Breach?” Solas questioned. “Fascinating. I wonder if that has anything to do with the way your magic resonates with the mark.”</p><p>Kat shrugged. She didn’t know, and she wasn’t curious enough to waste time on magical theory while the Fade mark in her hand threatened to rip her apart.</p><p>“Wait a minute. Hold on. Forget the glowy bits - you can see the Breach, even though you’re blind? That’s...No offense, Sparky, but that’s kind of creepy.” Varric’s tone of voice was dubious. “How does that work, exactly? Is that a Breach thing, or a <em>you</em> thing?”</p><p>Kat sighed. “Magic,” she offered shortly. This was going to get old very quickly if she kept having to explain it over and over again.<br/><br/>“I suspect she is constantly expending a small amount of mana to sense the life force of other spiritual entities,” Solas explained. His soft voice was much smoother than Varric’s - pedantic and level, like a very deep, slow-moving river. “Is that correct, Katriel?”<br/><br/>Kat shrugged again, and nodded. “Close enough. As long as I have mana, I can see living things, and anything that contains or is bound by magic - like spirits and demons. Plants are fainter, but I can still sense them. But inert matter, the non-living things like rocks or dirt or...or, wooden crates - I can’t see those.”<br/><br/>There was a long, thoughtful pause. “Well, I’ve heard of stranger things,” Varric offered thoughtfully.<br/><br/>Cassandra huffed, shifting her weight - the leather and metal of her armor creaked as she did so. “Come. We are wasting time,” the warrior commanded.<br/><br/>They continued onward for a few minutes, the snow and the frigid temperature gradually stealing into Katriel’s reserve of warmth. Cassandra warned her each time they were about to ascend a set of steps, which helped Kat avoid falling on her face.<br/><br/>They climbed mostly in silence. At least, until -<br/><br/>“So… <em> are </em> you innocent?” Varric’s voice was carefully neutral, innocently curious. </p><p>Kat huffed. “I don’t remember. I was in the Fade - and then I wasn’t. But I didn’t even know about the Conclave, or whatever. I would have had no reason to destroy the temple.”<br/><br/>“You didn’t know about - have you been living under a rock, Sparky? Even Chuckles knew about the Conclave, and he’s...well, look at him. He’s not exactly a paragon of social interaction,” Varric noted incredulously.<br/><br/>“Yes, thank you, Master Tethras,” the mage drolled.</p><p>The conversation lulled for a moment, the silence punctuated only by their footsteps. </p><p>“I admit that I am curious as to what you mean when you say you were in the Fade,” Solas stated.</p><p>Kat focused on following Cassandra’s spirit image through the blackness. She tried not to ‘look’ at Solas, who still burned very bright against the dark. “What else does it sound like? I was <em> in the Fade. </em>” </p><p>“You were there physically?” the mage pressed.<br/><br/>Kat frowned. For someone who seemed so precise with his words, the mage was fishing pretty hard. “Yes,” she growled. She didn’t want to think about the Fade any more than she had to. She had finally escaped, finally gotten <em> free</em>. </p><p>Solas hummed, as though she had confirmed one of his suspicions. The mage was silent after that, but Varric chuckled. “Well there’s your problem right there. You were <em>in</em> the Fade? That's way too extreme. If you’re going to spin a story, you’ve gotta start them off slow. Ease in to the crazy. Make it more believable, and you’ll be less prone to premature execution.”</p><p>Kat frowned. “It’s not a story, Varric.”<br/><br/>Satisfaction oozed from the dwarf’s voice. “But think about what a good one it’d be,” he prompted.</p><p>Kat huffed. The group continued onward, dispatching several groups of demons as they made their way towards the temple. The constant battles were nothing new - she had long since grown used to such things in the Fade - but the main difference here was that she had companions to look out for. She was forced to adjust her strategy, unable to drop a firestorm into a group of enemies while her party members were engaged in the thick of it. Cassandra, Solas, and Varric were competent fighters, so she didn’t allow herself to worry for them...but trusting them to be competent, and actively harming them with her magic, were two different things. The mark on her hand was growing more painful by the second, and tendrils of the Fade were writhing in her arm.</p><p>Further on, their party crested a small hill; below, a Fade rift spat out another group of demons, while a small group of soldiers fought to maintain their position in front of it. “Another rift!” Cassandra shouted. The soldiers yelled for help, and Kat fade-stepped forward before Solas had even begun to cast a barrier over the party. Kat sent a pulse of magic down the core of her daggers, thrusting them into the nearest Wraith. The demon shattered with an agonized screech, but Kat had already danced away to engage another Shade. </p><p>Cassandra waded into the fray while Solas and Varric remained at a distance, protecting them both with covering fire. The last demon fell to a powerful shield bash from Cassandra, and Solas was quick to step forward, gesturing for Kat to come closer. “Hurry! Use the mark!” he called.</p><p>Kat turned towards the Rift; like before, she felt the broken edges of the Fade, the desperate connection between the rift and the mark in her hand. She raised her palm to it, and the tendrils of power snapped into place between them. Katriel grit her teeth and yanked - and the rift slammed shut.</p><p>Cassandra called for the soldiers to open the gate, and her orders were swiftly obeyed. “Right away, Lady Cassandra!” The creak of old wood and metal was almost immediate; Kat sheathed her daggers, looking towards the sound. She ignored Solas’s congratulations and Varric’s quip about the mark on her hand, having nothing to say to either of them. She could ignore the pain in her hand up to a point, but she couldn't do that and waste her breath on idle chatter at the same time.</p><p>Cassandra marched forward, leading the rest of the group. Kat followed close behind; the different sound of her footsteps on the ground was telling of their scenery, but not moreso than the sudden swell of voices in front of them. Spectral figures were arrayed in decent numbers; this, then, must be the forward camp.</p><p>The spirit-figure of the woman Cassandra had called Leliana was arguing with someone else nearby. Katriel let her focus shift, narrow, studying the self-contained aura of the familiar figure as they approached. The arguing pair broke off their squabble as Cassandra marched closer. “Ah, here they come,” the stranger said. The voice was male, full of anger and disdain and the quaver of middle age. </p><p>“You made it,” Leliana noted. She sounded relieved, if not wholly at ease. Kat found herself comparing her voice to that of the Leliana in her memories. It had been so long ago, but… The woman continued, snapping Kat out of her reverie. “Chancellor Roderick, this is - “</p><p>But the man cut her off. “I know who she is. Her heresy is obvious. As Grand Chancellor of the Chantry, I hereby order you to take this abomination to Val Royeaux to face execution.”</p><p>Kat’s fingers gripped the hilts of her daggers.</p><p>Cassandra barked a laugh. “'Order me’? You are a glorified clerk. A bureaucrat!”</p><p>The trio degenerated into sharp arguments, the pointed comments sniping back and forth. Varric and Solas wisely kept out of it; but Kat, less wise than impatient, cut in.</p><p>“Enough. Do you want the Breach sealed, or not?” Her voice snapped roughly into the silence, but Roderick was quick to scoff.</p><p>“<em>You </em> brought this on us in the first place! Call the retreat, Seeker. Our position here is hopeless.”</p><p>But Cassandra stood firm. “No. We can stop this before it’s too late.”</p><p>There was another round of back and forth; Cassandra wanted to charge with the soldiers, while Leliana advocated for using the safer mountain pass. Chancellor Roderick wanted to abandon the venture entirely. Kat stood, gritting her teeth as the Breach pulsed, and her mark flashed. </p><p>Cassandra turned towards her in a huff. “How do <em> you </em> think we should proceed?”</p><p>Kat barked a sharp, short laugh. “You’re asking <em> me </em>? The abomination?”</p><p>Solas spoke up for the first time behind her. “You have the mark.”</p><p>Cassandra agreed. “And abomination or no, you are the one we must keep alive. Since we cannot agree on our own…” She trailed off, inviting Kat’s answer. </p><p>“Fine. The soldiers are fastest? Then we’ll go with them. Whatever happens, happens now.” Her attention drifted to the bodies scattered throughout the camp. Their spiritual signature was ghostly, faded and perfunctory when compared to the vibrant lights of the living. She counted over twenty of the dead. Twenty people, who had died fighting the demons that the rifts pulled through.</p><p>The quicker this was settled, the better.</p><p>Cassandra turned towards the others. “Leliana. Bring everyone left in the valley. Everyone.”</p><p>Roderick threw his hands up in disgust. “On your head be the consequences, Seeker.”</p><p>The man marched away - but Kat wasn’t paying attention. Her senses sought Leliana, but the woman had already begun to move, presumably to gather the remaining soldiers. Katriel followed her with her spirit sight for a moment or two...but she said nothing. If she survived all of this - if any of them survived this - there would be time enough for reunions later.</p><p>Cassandra led the way. Soldiers followed them, loud in their armor, and bright in the dark. En mass, they made their way to the temple, climbing stairs past ruins and standing fires. Katriel could smell the smoke, feel the heat, but she could not see the flames; it was an odd inconvenience. They passed many more dead as they ascended, only to approach another rift at the top of a set of crumbling stairs. Soldiers fought here, too; their group charged the milling demons, joining the battle as soon as they crested level ground.</p><p>Varric groaned as he swiftly set and loaded Bianca. “How many rifts <em> are </em> there?”</p><p>Solas was of a much more proactive mind, magic already swirling around his form. “We must seal it if we are to get past!”</p><p>Cassandra spurned them on. “Quickly, then!”</p><p>Kat was already moving, her daggers poised in her hands. Once more she pulled on her magic, coaxing it to her whim. More demons spawned; Kat slipped into stealth, sent a fireball towards one, and slit the throat of another. Then, as before, she stepped forward and sealed the rift.</p><p>“Let’s hope it works on the big one,” Varric said, leathers rustling as he reached behind himself, presumably to sheath Bianca. Kat was starting to put a name to the telltale shift of wood and metal, the hiss of friction that heralded certain movements. She might not be able to see everything, but her other senses would make up for it in time.</p><p>One of the soldiers approached, plate mail loud in the ensuing silence. His aura was stronger than the others, a roil of red and yellow and blue swirling in a nauseatingly loud symphony. “Lady Cassandra, you managed to close the rift? Well done.”</p><p>Another familiar voice. Kat’s brow furrowed as she tried to place a name to the sound. Who else could Bioware have possibly crammed into the third game?</p><p>Cassandra demurred. “Do not congratulate me, Commander. This is the prisoner’s doing.”</p><p>The man turned towards Katriel, his voice holding a hint of wary interest. “Is it? I hope they’re right about you. We’ve lost a lot of people getting you here.”</p><p>Katriel scoffed. “Don't worry - you'll be rid of me soon enough.” She brandished her hand towards the Commander, the mark spitting spitefully in her palm.</p><p>The man paused, stiffened. “Indeed,” he said - and the accent, the intonation...Kat finally placed it. The last time she'd seen Cullen, he'd been cursing her for sparing the mages of the Ferelden Circle. She vaguely recalled that she'd seen him during her playthrough of Dragon Age 2, too. But what was the Knight Captain of Kirkwall doing in Haven of all places?</p><p>She shifted so that Varric was in her sight, but the dwarf was silent, and his aura was calm. He wasn't surprised to see Cullen, though Katriel couldn't fathom why not. Just what exactly had happened between the end of Dragon Age 2 and Inquisition?</p><p>Cullen shifted. “The way to the temple should be clear. Leliana will try to meet you there.”</p><p>Cassandra nodded, moving to take point. “Then we’d best move quickly. Give us time, Commander.”</p><p>“I will do my best. Before you go - do you need a healer?” Cullen asked. The question was sudden, blurted out as though on impulse. Kat paused, considering the man inquisitively.</p><p>“I believe I am more than adequate in that capacity, Commander,” Solas noted stiffly.</p><p>There were two mages in the party. Why did he think they needed a healer? Were one of the others injured? Kat reached out with her senses - but no one's aura indicated that they were in pain, and she didn't smell any blood.</p><p>“Ah. It’s just, is something...I mean, her eyes - “</p><p>Kat’s confusion abruptly cleared, and she growled. Maker, this was going to get old.</p><p>“I’m fine,” she snapped. “Cassandra, let’s go.”</p><p>Cullen stiffened, his aura going rigid before his attention was captured by an injured soldier nearby. “Very well then. Maker watch over you – for all our sakes,” he offered, before moving away to help support the wounded man. He and the soldiers retreated back the way they’d come.</p><p>Kat stalked forward before abruptly realizing that she had no idea where she was going; she forced herself to pause and wait for Cassandra, who took point again without a word. Kat sighed, and followed in the other woman’s wake. “There is a drop here. The temple is just ahead,” Cassandra said.</p><p>“If you go down first, I will be able to see well enough to follow,” Kat noted. With a businesslike nod, Cassandra vaulted off of what was presumably the edge of a short cliff. Kat pulled her magic around herself, and used it to fade step to Cassandra’s side. </p><p>“I am impressed. That is not a technique most mages are capable of executing with any finesse,” Solas noted. He and Varric had leaped off the higher vantage point in a much more mundane fashion, landing heavily behind Kat and Cassandra.</p><p>“I’m not most mages,” Kat huffed. </p><p>“Indeed not,” Solas agreed. She could not see it, of course, but he sounded as though he was smiling. Kat paused, trying to put a name to the emotion drifting through the mage’s aura. <em> Smug</em>. The man was smug. Katriel tilted her head in puzzlement...but in the end, she shrugged.</p><p>They pressed onward, over roughshod terrain. They were no longer walking on dirt or snow, but blasted brick and stone. Kat stopped counting the number of dead as they continued forward. She could not see the temple itself, but the echo of power here was telling, all the same.</p><p>“The Temple of Sacred Ashes,” Solas announced. His voice was grave, and the smug note had disappeared from his aura. It had been replaced by a well of unmitigated sorrow.</p><p>“What’s left of it,” Varric ground out.</p><p>“Katriel - this is where you walked out the Fade and our soldiers found you. They said a woman was in the rift behind you. No one knows who she was,” Cassandra noted. Kat paused, lingering in the space Cassandra had indicated as she reached out with her magic. But there was nothing here that seemed familiar...and she certainly didn’t remember any woman in the Fade.<br/><br/>“I don’t remember,” she reiterated. She shrugged - but then her senses snagged on something else. It was coming from the direction of the temple. A rift, judging by the sudden throbbing ache in her hand, but also…there was something else, something familiar.</p><p>She shook her head, trying to clear it. She followed Cassandra further in, down a soft incline and towards - judging by the sound, and the heat - a still-burning fire. They skirted the latter, and avoided still more bodies. And there, right in front of them, hanging suspended in the sky - a rift. It was larger by far than any of the rifts they had encountered so far, bright and burning with energy as it crackled and spat magic out into the world of waking. But this one, instead of being an open window to the Fade, seemed...closed. Not sealed. More like, poorly shut. Like a bone that had broken, and begun to heal itself the wrong way. The pieces didn’t quite align enough for the whole to work as it should. Kat studied it for a moment, flexing her marked hand.</p><p>Behind them, a group of soldiers approached; Kat could hear their metal boots on the stone long before they drifted into the peripheral ‘view’ of her spirit sight. Leliana was with them, and she rushed towards them with an exclamation of relief. “You’re here! Thank the Maker.”</p><p>Cassandra turned towards the rogue, asking Leliana to spread her people throughout the Temple; Kat turned abruptly, making a sharp negating gesture with her hands. “No. Keep them back.”</p><p>Cassandra turned towards her, and Leliana’s focus shifted. “Why do you say that?” Cassandra questioned.</p><p>Kat sighed. “The rift is closed, but not sealed. I’ll have to rip it open again before I can seal it properly, and so much magic will attract attention from the Fade. It was hard enough to fight on the way here with the three of you getting in my way - I don’t need some random scouts dying on my behalf, too.”</p><p>Cassandra sputtered. “Getting in your way? How dare - “</p><p>“Cassandra. It’s not a comment on your fighting ability. I just can’t fight the way I’m used to if I’m worried about hurting other people.” Kat adjusted the makeshift blindfold around her eyes, making sure that it was still secure.<br/><br/>“We cannot possibly let you go down there alone,” Leliana said. </p><p>“Then don’t. You, Cassandra, Solas, and Varric can come with me. We’ve managed well enough so far,” Kat shrugged. Her mark snapped with energy, and Kat sent some of her own magic down her arm to soothe it. It helped, but only just; the mark strained and snarled against its bounds.</p><p>There was a breath of tense silence - but then Cassandra let out a sudden, sharp breath. “Fine. We do not have time to argue about this; we will do it your way.”</p><p>Leliana moved away to give last minute orders to her men, but she rejoined them almost immediately afterwards. “I presume you have a plan to get me up there?” Kat asked dryly, redirecting their attention towards the rift. </p><p>Solas stepped up beside them. “No. But this rift was the first, and it is the key. Seal it, and perhaps we seal the Breach.”</p><p>Cassandra turned away. “Then let’s find a way down. And be careful.”</p><p>The five of them followed Cassandra to the right, up a short collection of steps, and across a short expanse of rubble. The odd feeling Kat had sensed earlier was back, stronger as they moved forward. It felt like an itch at the back of her skull, an uncomfortable tug at the center of her consciousness. They pressed onwards - and then, there, burning against the black…. </p><p>“You know this stuff is red lyrium, Seeker.” Varric spoke up, but whether it was in warning or in incredulity, Kat couldn’t tell. </p><p>“I see it, Varric,” the warrior noted. </p><p>“But what it’s <em> doing </em> here?” Varric pressed.<br/><br/>Katriel frowned. The spires of red were bright in her spirit sight, veins crawling down through the rocks and rubble they sprouted from. It was odd to see such a vibrant color unconnected to a spirit’s aura - but even plants and corpses didn’t glow so brightly. It radiated magic, and the energy...<br/><br/>“It’s singing,” Kat muttered. It was a familiar song - not the quiet piano ballad of Urthemiel, not the siren song of an Old God, but something else, something inherently sinister. Locked away, sealed tight, a bit of her blood rose up in answer, and abruptly Kat retched and hurled herself away from the red. The Blight. The red lyrium had the <em> Blight. </em></p><p>“What is it? What is wrong?” Cassandra demanded. Leliana came up beside them, watching with sharp interest.</p><p>Kat edged past the jagged spires of crimson stonework, her dark knuckles nearly white where she clenched her hands into her fists. “Don’t touch it. Don’t go near it. It’s - “</p><p>“It’s evil,” Varric supplied. Kat nodded emphatically. She didn’t remember reading or hearing about lyrium corruption anywhere in Dragon Age Origins or Dragon Age 2 - though that certainly explained Bartrand, didn’t it? </p><p>Kat was careful to keep as much space between her and the red lyrium as she possibly could.<br/><br/>They pressed onwards, down a set of steps, and then -<br/><br/>“Now is the hour of our victory. Bring forth the sacrifice.”</p><p>Kat stiffened. The voice was deep, echoing, <em> powerful</em>. It bounced off her bones, setting deep and heavy in her stomach. </p><p>“What are we hearing?” Cassandra breathed.</p><p>“At a guess?” Solas posited, “Whoever created the Breach.”</p><p>Kat continued to stalk forward, bringing her magic to her hands, to the daggers she gripped within them. The Veil was thin here, too thin; it hovered just beyond the Breach, bleeding into reality. The feeling was at once welcome and dreaded; the former because it was familiar, the latter because she had no desire to return. </p><p>They kept heading down, closer to the rift.</p><p>The disembodied voice resounded once more, and another moment in time was unveiled. Kat recognized the flavor of a memory caught within the Fade, though this one was shattered and distorted beyond easy recall. “Keep the sacrifice still.”</p><p>A woman’s voice, just as disembodied, followed. “Someone help me!”</p><p>Cassandra gasped, her words shaky as she looked up towards the Breach. “That is Divine Justinia’s voice!”</p><p>They trotted forward; the rift above chimed metallically as the broken closure pressed against the Fade. “Someone help me!” the woman’s voice repeated.</p><p>And then -  “What is this? What’s going on?”</p><p>Kat stilled. That was her. That was her voice. But this whole scene, this entire encounter…she didn’t remember it. It was a hole in the tapestry of her memories. </p><p>Cassandra turned and caught her shoulder, fingers squeezing the battered curve of Kat’s pauldron. “That was your voice. Most Holy called out to you. But…”</p><p>There was a sudden flash of white light as an influx of magic swelled and exploded. Kat shook off Cassandra’s grip, automatically lowering into a battle-ready crouch...and then ghostly images appeared against the blackness of her blindness. The memory replayed in full this time, spectral figures pale as they fed off of the echoes of the Fade. Kat had always enjoyed encountering memories and dreams in the Fade, because they were enacted in full color and detail. Compared to ‘seeing’ spirits in real time, dreams were the preservation of a series of impressions. As such, the setting of the memory was usually just as clear as the subject. Stumbling across these pockets in the Fade had been her only way to glimpse the outside world.<br/><br/>And here, now, the magic provided a window into the memories she had lost.</p><p>Kat watched as a pale-skinned woman, floating in the air, was held aloft with magic. The victim wore chantry robes, and her face was finely weathered. A large dark figure, far less detailed than the rest of the scene, stood opposite. And there - </p><p>In the center of the illusory room, growing steadily larger as magic siphoned the life from the struggling Divine, a ghostly reflection of the rift hung open. In the memory, the rift was a perfect window into the fade, not the poorly sealed monstrosity of its current incarnation. Kat saw herself, a blazing beacon of magic, stepping through the rift - and into the room with Justinia and the ominous shadow. She only recognized the figure of herself via the familiar flavor of her magic; the woman in the memory looked nothing like her. Or at least, nothing like the memory she had of herself as Katherine. On this unknown, alien self, a vicious scar bisected a face that was almost otherworldly in its perfection; a ragged line of raised tissue trailing horizontally across the woman’s burning yellow eyes. Long dark hair, ragged and tangled and wild, drifted over her shoulders. Her hands were slightly misshapen, and as Kat looked closer, she realized that the woman’s fingers ended in subtle talons, shading to black near the tips. Dragon talons. Dragon eyes. Set in a gorgeous - if scarred - supermodel face.<br/><br/><em>Old God of Beauty, indeed.</em></p><p>Katriel closed her own hands tight around her daggers, her claws digging into the meat of her palms.</p><p>No wonder Leliana had not recognized her. Beyond the fact that she was supposed to have died...Katriel looked nothing like the Katherine that Leliana had once known.</p><p>Even so, Kat could not deny that the figure in the memory was her - even though it did not conform to the appearance of the Kat within her memories. Urthemiel had assured her that she would be ‘remade’. Perhaps it was foolish of her to be so surprised. Who would have possibly expected to emerge from a union with an Old God entirely unchanged in appearance?<br/><br/>“What is this? What’s going on?” the ghostly Kat demanded.</p><p>The ghostly image of Justinia looked towards Kat’s spirit-self. “Please, help me! Warn them!”</p><p>The dark shadow turned towards the rift his magic had opened - and bowed. The figure's burning, flame-like eyes landed upon the memory-of-Kat. “Ah. At last, you have come.” The deep, crawling voice was pregnant with smug satisfaction.<br/><br/>Kat stepped forward, but before she could get a better look, another vibrant flash of bright white magic banished the vision. The voices faded as the memory was broken, leaving their ragtag party in silence.</p><p>Kat’s mind was reeling. Not only had she effectively ‘seen’ herself for the first time in ten years, but the dark figure in the memory, the one who had most likely caused the Breach, had seemed to recognize her. He’d opened a rift directly into the Fade, using the Divine’s own life force to do so, and then - </p><p>Cassandra turned towards. Her voice was almost frantic as she pelted question after question at her.  “You <em> were </em> there! Who attacked? And the Divine, is she…? Was this vision true? What are we seeing?”</p><p>Kat shook her head. “I don’t remember!” she snarled. </p><p>Solas stepped forward. “Those were echoes of what happened here. The Fade bleeds into this place.” He looked towards Kat. “If you are going to reopen the rift, I would do so swiftly. There is no telling how long the mark will remain stable.”</p><p>Katriel nodded. “Fine. Are you all ready?” she asked. They could worry about the memory later. Assuming that there was a ‘later’. Possibly, she'd die, and then it wouldn't matter either way.</p><p>Her companions readied themselves, and Kat flexed her hand. “Solas,” Kat began, “I need you to keep a barrier around everyone. Don’t worry about attacking the demons. Just keep feeding your magic into shields.”<br/><br/>The mage hesitated only a moment. “As you say.”</p><p>Kat rolled her shoulders - and then stepped towards the rift. She raised her hand, letting the magic connect with the straining tendrils of magic that pulsed and writhed beyond the surface of the Breach. As before, the process was intrinsic. Tendrils of power connected the mark in her hand to the rift in the sky. Her senses poked and prodded at the seam of the closure until she found the barest weakness in the seal - and then she latched on to the snag in the pattern, and she yanked it open.</p><p>The rift burst open, gleaming with acidic green light. The Fade spilled out into the waking - and welcomed the spirit that had been waiting on the other side. </p><p>The demon that popped out of the rift possessed a familiar flavor. Kat smirked. Pride was not a new enemy, and one demon was far easier to corral than several. She felt Solas’s magic spread over the surface of her skin, heard Varric load a bolt into Bianca’s quiver, and noted the telltale whine of a bowstring being stretched as Leliana took up position on a nearby ledge. Cassandra had already unsheathed her sword - and as the Pride noted their presence, Kat gathered her magic. </p><p>She’d had to be so careful in her battles up until now. Careful not to hit her teammates, careful not to extend herself beyond the limits of mortal believability. The inconvenience of the Veil had hampered her, too, dampening her power - but here, where the Veil was thin enough to brush aside entirely…</p><p>She was done holding back.</p><p>Power gathered, pooled, cupped between her hands. Electricity was Pride’s element, and fire had no place in the ashes of the Temple; she eschewed them, and chose ice instead. With a gesture, she stirred the storm, gathered it close. The magic continued to amass energy, pulling from the willing Fade until the well of her power was fit to bursting - and then she set it free.</p><p>A fist of pure aetheric energy crashed into the gloating Pride demon. The Fade itself slammed into the demon’s body, and it was thrown heavily to the ground. Debris scattered around the point of impact as she twisted the power, keeping with the theme as she forced shards of ice to rain down from the sky. They pelted into the demon’s armored form without remorse, a self-contained blizzard directing the whole of its ire upon a single target. Where the shards hit, ice began to grow; in a matter of moments, the Pride demon was half encased in a block of opaque magic. When it broke free of that with a guttural howl, Kat pulled another thread of magic to herself; a whirlwind spiraled around the still-rampaging blizzard, corralling the Pride demon and keeping it imprisoned in the grasp of her magic. It roared, trying to break through the wall of howling wind and flying ice - only for the telltale whistle of bolts and arrows to drive it back. Even Cassandra stood just outside the range of the storm, hacking at Pride’s arms and legs whenever it ventured near enough to edge. </p><p>Kat marched across the battlefield, directing the flow of magic - before she ducked right into the hail storm. The magic parted around her body, the wind howling around her ears. A whip of electricity snapped beyond her left shoulder; she ducked out of the way, and rolled right into the armored side of the Pride demon.</p><p>It was injured; its power fluctuated wildly, and great gaping holes were rent in its aura. Kat slid around to its blind side, ducking into its shadow - and leaped. Her daggers sank deep into the demon’s back, left-then-right, and as the thing roared in pain she used her blades to climb its body. She ripped a dagger free only to stab it in higher further up its back, hauling herself upwards.</p><p>The Pride demon reached back, trying to claw her off its back - but Solas’s barrier held, and the arrow fire from Varric and Leliana continued to gnaw away at its health. As it was distracted by a crossbow bolt to the face, Kat hooked her leg around the Pride demon’s shoulder, brought her daggers down and across its neck - and with a mighty heave bolstered by her magic, she sliced its head clean off.</p><p>Her magic fell as its body crashed to the ground. </p><p>“Now! Seal the rift!” Cassandra cried. </p><p>Kat rolled to a stand, swaying as her body adjusted to the sudden flux of magic. But she brought her marked hand obediently up, her gaze following the glowing threads of power as they snapped towards the opening in the Veil. The rift bucked against her will, stronger and more established than any of the ones she’d sealed thus far. </p><p>She grit her teeth, supporting her wrist with her other hand as her arm trembled under the strain. The power snapped, whining, pulling against her hold. Waves of pain drowned her thoughts as the mark writhed in her palm, but with one last heave of effort, Kat grabbed hold of the edges of the rift and yanked. The magic bowed to her will, and the rift slammed shut, all resistance suddenly gone as a chain of agonizing feedback pulsed through her hand. The pain snapped all the way up her arm, and through her chest, into her head - and then Kat knew no more. Black overtook the green, and she fell into violent unconsciousness.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Okay friends, so ORIGINALLY I was planning on adding Kat’s Joining to this chapter, but it seemed plenty long enough as it was. And since earlier chapters had a theme of ‘waking up’, I thought it was appropriate to end this one with Katt falling unconscious after closing the Breach. NEXT CHAPTER there will be some feels going on (Davethhhh D8), and hopefully our timeline will start to be a bit more linear after that. </p><p>What do you guys think of the time skips up until this point? Too confusing? Just right? I wanted to give a very clear picture of the difference between Kat pre and post Urthemiel. Do you think I managed that alright? Would you guys prefer if I restructured everything to this point in chronological order? Tell me in the comments!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. The Joining</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <h3>9:30 Dragon<br/>Ostagar</h3><p>Alistair was even cuter in person than he’d been on screen.</p><p>Kat felt herself shifting awkwardly from foot to foot, her eyes wide and her cheeks red. She tucked a curl of her hair behind her ear - only for it to instantly sway right back into place. She sighed, but only stopped fidgeting when Daveth elbowed her roughly in the side. “Quit fidgetin’. You’re dancin’ around like a Chantry sister in the Pearl sweatroom,” the man chuckled. </p><p>Kat scowled, but the rogue only smirked at her in answer. <em> Ass. </em> She swatted him, and then turned back to face Alistair. <em> The </em> Alistair. Meeting Daveth and Duncan was one thing, but Alistair was in an entirely different category. He was a <em>party member</em>, after all. She'd probably spent more collective hours with him in the game than with anyone else. He'd been her first videogame crush, and meeting him in person was giving her a serious case of the butterflies. She could feel her brain about to short circuit, and cleared her throat even as she bit back her girlish squeal of excitement. </p><p>They’d only just arrived at Ostagar an hour or two ago. It was still midmorning, and Duncan had sent them off to locate Alistair while he settled back into camp and conducted some business elsewhere. Ostagar, like Denerim, was much bigger than the game had indicated. The remaining structures, though ravaged by time, made it clear that Ostagar had once been a thriving fortress. Though the bulk of it had been reduced to rubble, the army that gathered in its shadow lent it a new lease on life. It took more than a few minutes for Kat to get her bearings, but she’d recognized the distinctive archways easily enough, and she’d dragged Daveth in tow behind her. Until she figured out what exactly was going on, she wasn’t willing to let him leave her sight.</p><p>They’d arrived just as Alistair had insulted the circle mage. She was vaguely amused that the conversation followed the game script almost exactly. The circle mage stormed off, and Kat's cheeks blazed as Alistair finally turned towards her.</p><p>“You know, one good thing about the Blight is how it brings people together,” Alistair quipped. He seemed to realize he had company for the first time, turning to face her and Daveth with a charming smile.  “We haven’t met, have we? I don’t suppose you happen to be another mage,” he asked with mock dread. </p><p>Kat grinned, shaking her head. “Fortunately, no, not a mage. Just your run of the mill Denerim street rat.” She had the weirdest urge to break out into song, maybe introduce Thedas to some of Disney’s Aladdin, but a glance at Alistair’s bemused expression warned her that perhaps now wasn’t the best time. She was, perhaps, a bit too slap-happy  to give the conversation the serious consideration it deserved. “Nice to meet you, Alistair.”</p><p>The man looked puzzled for a moment - and it was adorable. “How you do know…? Ahh, no wait, don’t tell me. You’d be Duncan’s new recruits, I suppose. Glad to meet you. As the junior member of the order, I’ll be accompanying you when you prepare for the Joining.”<br/><br/>The words were familiar enough that Kat wondered how much her presence here was going to mess things up. This was a conversation that <em>should</em> have featured the future Hero of Ferelden....and now all evidence pointed to the fact that Thedas was going to be getting getting Kat, instead. The thought made her uneasy. Granted, the plot of Origins was as familiar to her as the opening narrative of Lord of the Rings, as intrinsic as the lyrics to Evanescence’s first album. She’d played through the storyline four or five times before she eventually started on Dragon Age 2 - and though living through it was surreal, she was comforted by the fact that it was at least familiar. <br/><br/>“I’m Kat, and this is Daveth,” she started. Daveth huffed, and she looked at him with a curious tilt to her head. “What?” she demanded. <br/><br/>“Not gonna give ‘im your fancy name?” the rogue drawled, grinning. <br/><br/>Kat bit her tongue, glaring at the swarthy man as her cheeks flared red. Alistair was smiling, but in a vaguely puzzled way, looking between the two of them as though he were trying to figure out the joke. “Fancy name?”</p><p>Kat shook her head. “It’s not important. Ignore Daveth, he’s clearly fallen on his head a few too many times. Running from guardsmen, you know, those rooftops are just <em> so </em> slippery.”</p><p>Daveth crossed his arms. “Hey now-” Kat huffed, and cut him off. “We need to head back to Duncan; he wanted to get started as soon as possible.”<br/><br/>Alistair nodded, and the three of them started back across the camp. <br/><br/>“I’m curious. Have you ever actually fought darkspawn before?” Alistair asked as they walked. <br/><br/>Kat glanced at him, and shook her head. “No, I haven’t. I’ve never even seen one.” <br/><br/>Daveth murmured agreement. “City’s not really a hot spot for ‘spawn activity. Would like to keep it that way, if we can.” <br/><br/>Alistair’s expression was uncharacteristically somber. “When I fought my first one, I wasn’t prepared for how monstrous it was. I can’t say I’m looking forward to encountering another.” <br/><br/>Silence fell between them, his words a reminder of the gravity of their choice - but it wasn’t quiet for very long. They had just rounded the corner by the kennels when Alistair spoke again. <br/><br/>“Sooo….fancy name?” <br/><br/>Daveth wheezed with laughter as Kat almost stumbled. She caught herself, and turned to glare at both of them. “Christ on a freaking....! It’s nothing, Alistair. Forget it.” <br/><br/>Daveth guffawed, and then leaned close to conspiratorially whisper in Alistair’s ear. “Don’t let Kat fool you. She’s a right proper noble, she is. I mean, with a name like -” <br/><br/>“Daveth, I will stab you. Repeatedly. In the face.” Alistair choked back a laugh, even as Kat glared daggers at the pair of them. “I told you, I’m not a noble.” And now, she was regretting ever telling Daveth her full name. <br/><br/>They continued walking back through the camp. Daveth thankfully let the subject drop, instead pestering Alistair about the mages, the Chantry, and the Grey Wardens. Kat chimed in only to keep the flow of information coming; it would be suspicious, she knew, if she accidentally let slip a bit of knowledge that she had no reason to possess. She’d been careful up until now; somehow, she didn’t think telling anyone that she had come from another world would go over well. </p><p>Kat bit her lip. She was in an awkward, precarious position, and she wasn’t sure how to remedy it. If she told the truth, they would probably think that she was crazy. Fat lot of good she’d do locked up in chains or - worse - made Tranquil for claiming to see the future. And honestly, who would she even tell? Who would believe her? Kat nervously palmed her daggers, needing something to keep her hands busy as her thoughts scrambled against the inside of her skull.<br/><br/>She couldn’t let Daveth die. He was her friend, not some fleeting NPC. And Duncan, Cailan, even Jory...they were important, heroes in their own right. They didn’t deserve to die, either. <br/><br/>But if she managed to alter the game’s events...would she be able to predict how the story would go from there onward? She wasn’t even supposed to <em> be </em> here. Did she have a right to change anything? Had she <em> already </em> changed things? </p><p>Despite her best efforts, she hadn’t seen anyone meeting the Hero of Ferelden’s profile since coming to Ostagar. No elf, or dwarf, or noble recruit had magically sprouted from the woodwork. Something had already changed from the game she knew. Was it really because <em> she </em> was here instead? Because she’d persisted in tagging along? Would that be enough to save Daveth? <br/><br/>Kat sighed, and shook her head. When she noticed Alistair glancing at her inquisitively, she plastered a smile on her face and shrugged as they continued to walk through camp. After only minimal prompting, Alistair explained that he had been training as a templar, spoke about the Blight, and elaborated on his relationship with Duncan. It was all lore that Kat was very much familiar with, but having Daveth around for the conversation put an interesting spin on things. </p><p>“So, this archdemon... What is it, exactly?”<br/><br/>“The Old Gods were dragons, or so the stories say. Big ones. Intelligent, even. The Tevinter Empire had big statues of them. Each dragon had a name and a place in the cosmos...It’s all very intricate. The archdemons may not be the Old Gods, but they’re definitely dragons,” Alistair explained. <br/><br/>“You’d think someone’d mention if they’d seen an old Tevinter lizard flyin’ about,” Daveth snorted. <br/><br/>Alistair shrugged, but his voice was impassioned as he answered, “It could be in the wilds, or underground.  It could be hiding. Just because it hasn’t shown itself doesn’t mean it isn’t out there.”</p><p>“I think people will notice when darkspawn start pouring out of the Wilds, anyhow,” Kat sighed.<br/><br/>The mood from then on was a bit more somber - but fortunately, they had arrived back at Duncan’s corner of the camp. The Grey Warden turned to face them, nodding in acknowledgement of their approach. <br/><br/>“You found Alistair, did you? Good. I’ll assume you’re ready to begin preparations.” <br/><br/>After admonishing Alistair for his less than diplomatic approach with the mages, Duncan gave them the task of collecting a vial of darkspawn blood for each recruit. Kat grimaced; unlike Daveth and Jory, she knew exactly what those vials were going to be used for. Duncan also explained that they were to retrieve the Grey Warden treaties from an outpost in the Wilds - but even as he spoke, Kat was growing increasingly more worried. With the joining looming ever closer, the tragic events of Ostagar were creeping up on her. <br/><br/>“Duncan,” she blurted suddenly. The Grey Warden turned towards her, his brow arched; Jory, Daveth, and Alistair turned to look at her, too. Kat bit her lip. She had to do <em> something</em>. She couldn’t trust that her presence alone could save them. <br/><br/>“Can I...talk to you? In private?” she asked.<br/><br/>Duncan waved a hand at the others, and they took the hint and scattered, prepping for the journey into the Wilds. “Is something the matter, Kat?” Duncan asked once the men were out of earshot.</p><p>Kat shifted uneasily. “Okay, so...You’re...probably not going to believe me. But I figured I’d kick myself if I didn’t at least try.”<br/><br/>Duncan looked at her with a somewhat bemused expression, but there was something sharp in his whiskey-brown gaze. Kat swallowed. <br/><br/>“I can...see the future.” Small steps. “Like a Seer. Sort of. ” </p><p>Right, sure, okay. She had no idea if Seers or fortune tellers or whatever were a thing in Dragon Age, but hopefully that was more palatable than ‘hey Duncan I came from another world where your whole life is all just a fictional story, and oh by the way you’re going to die in less than twenty four hours’.  </p><p>She shook her head, and pressed on. She had to weave a story. A believable one, that wouldn’t see her thrown into a dungeon. <em> God or Maker or Andraste, whoever - please help me. </em></p><p>“I was running from my old, uh, masters when Daveth found me in Denerim. When I met him, I saw...I saw what would happen when he undertook the Joining. That’s why I followed you. I couldn’t let him die, and...and there are other things that are going to happen, bad things, that I thought I might be able to help with.”<br/><br/>She risked a glance into Duncan’s face. Much to her relief, the man looked thoughtful rather than dismissive. “I had thought the only Seers were in Rivain,” the man mused. Kat blinked - and then tried not to look like the knowledge was news to her. “There have been rumors of Tevinter producing their own future-seers as well. Are you suggesting you originally come from Tevinter? Minrathous, or Asariel, perhaps?” The rogue cast a serious look at Kat, his eyes dark with suspicion as she shook her head. “How do I know that you are telling the truth?” Duncan pressed. His bearded face was set into a frown. <br/><br/>Kat tugged at a lock of her hair. “Well...the fact that I know the Joining can kill you, for one. I don’t think drinking darkspawn blood would be good for anybody, honestly.” Duncan grimaced, but nodded. Kat took a deep breath and continued, “I know that you were originally a thief in Val Royeaux. And that you were forced to become a Warden after you were caught trying to steal a ring another Warden intended to give to his fiancee.” <br/><br/>Her voice got even lower. “I know that when you went into the Deep Roads with King Marric, you - “ <br/><br/>“Enough. I believe you.” Duncan cast a swift, surreptitious glance towards Alistair, who was currently sitting on a log sharpening his sword, none the wiser. <br/><br/>Kat let out a breath as Duncan interrupted her - and sent up a quiet thanks that she had the foresight to read <em> The Calling</em>. <br/><br/>Duncan folded his arms, looking at Kat beneath heavy-lidded brows. "It seems you see more than just the future," he drolled.<br/><br/>She squirmed. “Right. Well. So….the thing is, my knowledge is sorta <em> limited</em>. It’s centered on specific people. You, Daveth, Jory, Alistair...a few others. But I wouldn’t be able to tell you anything about the guy at the gate. Or the washerwoman over there. It’s just kind of...specific.” <br/><br/>“Alright. Then what did your visions tell you?” Duncan pressed. <br/><br/>She bit her lip. “If Daveth drinks from the Joining goblet...he dies. The taint is too much for his body to handle. And Jory...he changes his mind once he realizes what the Joining entails. You end up having to kill him, so that he can’t -” <br/><br/>“So that he can’t spread the Wardens’ secrets. Understood.” Duncan was silent, thoughtful as he mulled over what Kat had told him. “How accurate are your visions?” he asked at last. <br/><br/>Kat tilted her head. “What do you mean?” <br/><br/>“Are you quite certain that is the only outcome if the Joining proceeds as planned?” <br/><br/>Kat thought on this for a moment - but then she nodded. “I’ve seen it play out several times. It never changes.” She let out a breath. “I was hoping that if I told you, if you knew about it beforehand, you could…I don’t know. Send them away? Or...is there a way to make the Joining safer, maybe?” <br/><br/>Duncan shook his head. “Unfortunately, not that we’ve found.” He scratched his beard. Kat was relieved that he was taking her seriously enough to consider the problem.  “I will not lie, even one additional Warden could turn the tide against the darkspawn. Our numbers are few in Ferelden. Losing all three of you recruits would put us in a precarious situation, especially with the Blight only just beginning.” <br/><br/>Kat shook her head. “You won’t lose all three. I’ll stay.” She swallowed past the lump in her throat. There was no guarantee that she would live through the Joining, either. But then...maybe that was a good thing. Maybe death would finally wake her from this dream - like the ultimate restart button. It wasn't her first choice, but maybe...<br/><br/>She touched the hilt of her daggers, a habit that was swiftly becoming a nervous tic. She focused on what she'd been saying before. “And...and maybe if we just <em> told </em> Ser Jory about the risk, really made him understand that being a Grey Warden is a one way street, he would have the chance to make his own decision. I don’t know if he lives through the Joining, because in all of the...uh, visions I’ve seen, he’s so surprised by the ceremony that he tries to run before he ever gets the chance to drink from the goblet. But he wasn’t conscripted, was he? If Jory decided not to go through with it before he learned of all the specifics, he could still go home, couldn’t he?” <br/><br/>Duncan pursed his lips - but after a moment, he nodded. “I’ll speak with him. Are <em> you </em> certain you still want to go through with it, knowing the risks?” <br/><br/><em> Hell no</em>. She wasn’t sure of anything. But she wouldn’t feel right abandoning Duncan now. “Nothing is certain but death and taxes,” she quipped, making an effort to smile. Duncan looked at her oddly, and she felt herself falter, but struggled to maintain an air of confidence. “I’ll be fine. I’m sure,” she offered comfortingly. <br/><br/>“Very well. I’ll think on what to do about Daveth. In the mean time, you should prepare for the Wilds. Preparations for the Joining aside, it is vitally important that we try to retrieve those treaties.” He paused. “I suppose it’s worth asking a Seer if the scrolls are even still there…?” <br/><br/>Kat grinned, and this time, it was a brighter effort. “They’re not where you left them, but we’ll bring them back anyways.” <br/><br/>Duncan snorted, and shook his head. He waved her off - or, he tried to. Kat caught his arm. <br/><br/>“There’s something else,” she started. Duncan paused, waiting. Kat took a breath, bracing herself, and her words came in fits and starts. “In the battle - after the Joining. Something happens, and the reinforcements King Cailan expects...they don’t come. The army is overwhelmed.” She tried to be vague; she wasn’t sure how much she could change without the whole timeline unraveling. Her knowledge would be less than useless if the future was upended - but that didn’t mean she could just sit back without even <em> trying </em> to save their lives.</p><p>She took a breath. “You die, Duncan. Cailan...he’s killed by an Ogre, and...and you die trying to avenge him,” Kat croaked. <br/><br/>Duncan was silent. His gaze lingered on Kat’s face, and whatever he saw there made him clench his jaw. “Ah. I see,” the Warden sighed. Kat’s heart beat hard in her chest, but Duncan shook his head. “Thank you, Kat. Perhaps the warning itself will be enough to change our fate.” He paused. “You took a great risk in telling me who you are. I will not forget it.” <br/><br/>Her heart sank as she realized what he was saying - and at the guilt that crept into her mind as he thanked her for a lie. He still intended to fight. She bit her lip, inhaling a sharp breath to deny his decision, to argue, to say <em> something </em>, but - </p><p>“It will be alright. There is little we can do now to alter the King’s plans. The strategy has already been relayed to the army, and nothing short of Andraste herself could dissuade Cailan from riding into battle.” Duncan met her gaze, and his eyes were warm. “The Grey Wardens will do our duty. As we must.”</p><p>Kat looked away - and nodded. Her warning had come too late, if it was good for anything at all. Duncan squeezed her shoulder in a fatherly way. “Come. You must get going. Send Ser Jory to speak with me a moment, if you would.”<br/><br/>Kat did as she was bid, dispiritedly trudging towards the knight and steering him towards Duncan. Kat busied herself readying her pack as the Warden and Jory exchanged words, their heads bent together near the warm light of the fire. It was only a minute or two before Jory stalked away from the camp, pausing only to grab his bag and his sword before stomping towards the heart of Ostagar proper. Alistair and Daveth watched him go with various degrees of puzzlement on their faces. <br/><br/>“Ser Jory has decided not to undergo the Joining. He will be fighting with the soldiers under Loghain’s command, instead,” Duncan explained. Kat managed to hide a wince - but, at the same time, she felt a warm wash of relief spill through her body. Jory might not be tucked away safe and sound where the battle wouldn’t touch him, or on his way home to his wife and child, but at least he wouldn’t die for certain at the Joining altar. <br/><br/>She had done it. She had changed something. She exhaled a ragged breath of relief that she managed to hide as a sudden cough as Daveth glanced in her direction. <br/><br/>“Kat, Daveth. The same option is available to you, if you’d prefer,” Duncan continued. “I will not lie; we Grey Wardens pay a heavy price to become what we are. Fate may decree that you pay that price now rather than later. I will think no less of you if you decide to follow Ser Jory instead.” <br/><br/>Kat felt a swell of appreciation towards Duncan, even as she looked to the rogue beside her. She’d already made her choice, but if Daveth would just - <br/><br/>“I’ll stay on, I think. The Blight hurts everyone, and I’ll stand against it as a Warden if’n I can,” her friend answered. <br/><br/>Kat’s stomach fell. “Uh. Right, me too,” she piped when Daveth’s eyes turned towards her. <br/><br/>Duncan nodded, giving no outward indication of his thoughts. “Good. Then you had best get going. May the Maker watch over your path.” <br/><br/>Alistair joined them, ushering them away from the camp. Before they left, Kat stopped by the kennel master and spoke with him about getting medicine for one of the sick mabari, and she also nabbed a few supplies from the requisitions tent before approaching the gate to the Wilds. </p><p> </p><hr/><p><br/><br/>“Well, well. What have we here?” <br/><br/>Shivers lanced down Kat’s spine at the smoky voice that interrupted their treasure hunting. She turned slowly, eyeing Morrigan’s approaching figure with bemusement; the familiar sense of deja vu passed with a flutter of butterfly wings in her stomach. She’d always liked Morrigan. Despite the impossibility of actually pleasing the woman, she appreciated the witch’s snark and sass. Even as Alistair and Daveth sputtered indignantly behind her, Kat was silent, unable to suppress the smile that curled across her lips. <br/><br/>Morrigan’s speech was a thing of beauty; Kat listened with a displaced feeling of pride as the woman neared their party. This was much, much better than fighting the darkspawn; she was more than willing to sit back and enjoy the show.</p><p>Alistair had led them to the Grey Warden outpost. Already knowing what they would find there, Kat had let the men root around in the shattered chest, turning around instinctively at the voice that heralded them from the ruins.<br/><br/>“What say you, hmm? Scavenger, or intruder?” <br/><br/>Kat grinned, unrepentant. “Both, at the moment.” <br/><br/>Alistair stepped swiftly up beside Kat. “Don’t answer her. She looks Chasind, and that means others may be nearby.” <br/><br/>“Oooh, you fear barbarians will swoop down upon you?” Morrigan sneered dramatically. <br/><br/>Alistair shifted from foot to foot, unamused. “Yes, swooping is bad.” <br/><br/><em>Yessss. </em>Kat almost cheered, but settled for a huff of poorly suppressed laughter. Alistair glared at her.<br/><br/>“She’s a witch of the wilds, she is! She’ll turn us into toads,” Daveth warned. <br/><br/>“Witch of the Wilds? Such idle fancies, those legends. Have you no minds of your own?” Morrigan goaded them further. Kat shifted, and the mage focused on her. “You there. Tell me your name and I shall tell you mine. Let us be civilized.” <br/><br/>“I am Kat. A pleasure, I’m sure,” Kat quipped. <br/><br/>“Such manners! Please, call me Morrigan, if you wish.” Morrigan crossed her arms in front of her chest - though it really didn’t do anything to ameliorate the skimpy nature of her outfit. “Shall I guess your purpose?” the mage asked. “You sought something in that chest, something that is here no longer?” <br/><br/>Alistair jumped to the fore. “Here no longer? You stole them, didn’t you? You’re some kind of - “ <br/><br/>“Alistair, no name calling. We’re being civilized, remember,” Kat cautioned. <br/><br/>The junior Warden huffed. “But she - !” <br/><br/>“How very eloquent. How does one steal from dead men?” Morrigan drolled. <br/><br/>“Quite easily, it seems. Those documents are Grey Warden property, and I suggest you return them,” Alistair demanded. <br/><br/>“I will not, for ‘twas not I who removed them. Invoke a name that means nothing here any longer if you wish - I am not threatened.” Morrigan’s piercing yellow gaze was heavy and unwavering - Kat met it squarely. <br/><br/>“If you wanted to point us towards whoever <em> did </em> remove them, I’m sure Alistair would love to get out of your hair,” she grinned. <br/><br/>The corner of Morrigan’s lips twitched; in another life, perhaps it would have been a smile. “‘Twas my mother, in fact. If you wish, I will take you to her. ‘Tis not far from here, and you may ask her for your papers, if you like.” <br/><br/>Alistair turned towards Kat and Daveth, lowering his voice.  “We should get those treaties, but I dislike this...Morrigan’s sudden appearance. It’s too convenient.” <br/><br/>“We don’t much have a choice, Alistair,” Kat said. She reached out and squeezed his shoulder. “Come on, I’ll protect you.” <br/><br/>“Oh. Er, right,” the armored Warden sputtered. “I feel safer already. Let’s just...go then, shall we?” <br/><br/>“She’ll put us all in the pot, she will. Just you watch,” Daveth whined. <br/><br/>Kat huffed. Babies, the lot of them. “Please, Daveth. Out of all of us, you’re probably the safest. She’d get more flavor out of a bit of dried leather,” she laughed. The rogue sputtered, but Kat had already turned to Morrigan. “Lead on, lady witch.” <br/><br/>They encountered no more darkspawn on their way to Flemeth’s hut. In a way, it was a relief; daggers were straightforward. Even so, the Darkspawn were infinitely worse than she’d expected. Desiccated and disgusting, they were even more terrifying than the zombies in the old horror flicks her dad used to watch. Their flesh was bloated and cast in sickly shades of blue and purple, the bones beneath their veiny skin were misshapen and savage. Each and every one was twisted away from the natural description of humanity; their teeth were pointed, their hands were clawed, and blood and ichor bled from their mouths in rivulets of tainted drool. Even worse, they moved with a cruel sort of intelligence; they were swift, and deadly, and disgusting. Kat did not relish fighting them, but she felt no guilt over their deaths.</p><p>The smell, however, stuck with her. Worse than the foul aromas of backalley Denerim, each of the darkspawn smelled like a midsummer offal heap. Her fighting style necessitated a few up close maneuvers that Kat instantly regretted.<br/><br/>After she’d killed her first one, Kat had dry heaved into the nearby bush. Alistair awkwardly patted her back, offering comfort. A couple feet away, Daveth knelt over the corpses to collect vials of their blood. Kat had flashed Alistair a thin smile, straightening with effort. They’d continued onward, and though her stomach heaved every time she saw another darkspawn, she tried not to slow the party down any more than she already had. <br/><br/>She’d gotten acclimatized to the darkspawn by now - and fortunately, since they had collected enough blood for the ritual, Alistair was able to steer them around the scattered groups of remaining darkspawn as they traipsed through the woods. When they made it to the swamp where Flemeth had taken up residence without having to battle their way through another hoard of monsters, Kat let out a breath of relief. If she ignored the unpleasant squelching of the muddy swamp beneath her feet, she could almost enjoy the brisk autumn day. <br/><br/>The conversation with Flemeth went much as Kat remembered it from the game. She let Morrigan introduce them and said nothing as Alistair and Daveth expressed their doubts, letting them get it all out of their system. It was only when Flemeth turned towards her specifically that Kat focused on the exchange. “And what of you? Do you possess a different viewpoint? Or do you believe as the others do?” <br/><br/>Kat shrugged. “I don’t think anything.” <br/><br/>Noncommittal was probably the safest bet. But Flemeth appeared dissatisfied with that answer. “Oh come now, I hardly believe <em> that</em>. Of some of these others, maybe. But you...you reek of destiny. I never forget a smell like that.” <br/><br/>Kat grinned. “Whatever else, I think it would be stupid to insult Asha’bellanar in her own swamp.” <br/><br/>Flemeth barked a laugh. “Oh, I like you. How unexpected! But I haven’t used that name in quite a while. Lets keep that between us, yes?” <br/><br/>Kat sketched a shallow bow. She knew that Flemeth wasn’t wholly who she appeared to be. The Witch featured so prominently at the beginning of Dragon Age 2, but the lore about her - at least, that Kat could remember from her playthroughs - was fairly sparse. She knew that the elves worshipped her as Asha'bellanar. She knew that she could turn into a dragon. She knew that she had - apparently - lived through several ages, extending her life by stealing her daughters' bodies. She was sure that all of it was somehow connected, but as of Act 2 in Kirkwall, Bioware hadn't seen fit to illuminate the matter. Maybe something about the Old Gods? Those were dragons, after all. <br/><br/>In any case, backstories and codex entires weren't very important at the moment; they just needed the treaties. She said as much, and Flemeth’s pointed gaze drifted away as she turned back towards her hut. She emerged a scant moment later, a bundle of scrolls in her arms, pointedly ignoring the puzzled look Morrigan sent her way. <br/><br/>“Before you begin barking, your precious seal wore off long ago. I have protected these,” Flemeth wheezed. <br/><br/>“You - oh. You protected them,” Alistair gaped. He reached forward and tentatively took them from older woman, placing them into his pack with exquisite care. <br/><br/>“And why not? Take them to your Grey Wardens and tell them this Blight’s threat is greater than they realize!” Flemeth warned. <br/><br/>Kat nodded. “Thank you, Flemeth. I will make sure they know.” Her voice was low, but she was stubborn, and her tone was firm. Duncan had believed her about Jory. Hopefully he’d thought of something that would help Daveth live, too. Would he believe her about the hoard? About Loghain’s betrayal? <br/><br/>“Well, now that you’ve gotten what you came for, I suppose ‘tis time for you to go then,” Morrigan eagerly noted. <br/><br/>“Do not be ridiculous, girl. These are your guests,” Flemeth drawled. <br/><br/>Morrigan looked as though she would rather do anything else - but she hung her head and nodded in resigned obedience. Her voice was falsely cheerful as she said,  “Oh, very well. I will show you out of the woods. Follow me.”</p><p>The group turned and began to troop back towards the forest, Morrigan in the lead. Kat pulled up short when Flemeth called out.<br/><br/>"And girl? Do try not to die. We will need to talk soon, you and I. Corpses do not make for interesting conversation."<br/><br/>Kat nodded, goosebumps rising on her arms. She hurried to catch up with the rest of the group.<br/><br/></p><hr/><p><br/>Morrigan left them at the outskirts of Ostagar. Kat thanked her and waved cheerfully as she departed, earning a puzzled look from the grumpy mage. Daveth and Alistair, however, seemed markedly relieved by Morrigan's absence.<br/><br/>After a quick stop by the kennels to drop off the flower the kennelmaster had wanted - she’d never forgive herself for neglecting a sick dog - Kat returned hopefully to Duncan. The man was standing in the same circle of Andrastian statues in which they’d left him, silhouetted by the roaring bonfire behind him. Alistair handed over the vials of darkspawn blood they had collected, and Duncan took them with grave solemnity. “I assume you were successful?” the Warden asked. <br/><br/>“Yes I've got the treaties here, Duncan," Alistair offered.<br/><br/>“Good. I’ve had the Circle mages preparing. With the blood you’ve gathered, we can begin the Joining immediately.” Kat tried to catch Duncan’s eye, but the man wouldn’t look at her. Her heart rate sped, and she bit her tongue. <br/><br/>“Lets go, then. I’m anxious to see this Joining, now,” Daveth said. <br/><br/>Kat shut her eyes. No, no! Daveth couldn’t drink - she wouldn’t let him. “Duncan - “ she tried, but the Warden interrupted her. <br/><br/>“Then let us begin,” Duncan’s voice intoned. “Alistair, take them to the old temple.”</p><p>Kat followed obediently, but her nails dug into the palms of her hands. Had Duncan not believed her after all? Was he so desperate for more Wardens that he was willing to risk Daveth’s life anyways? Or was he so resigned to his own death that her friends’ didn’t matter? Kat barely acknowledged the solemn beauty of the ruined temple, her thoughts tumbling over one another as she tried to think of another solution. She would <em> not </em> let Daveth die. </p><p>“Daveth,” she hissed. The rogue turned towards her, his brow arched inquisitively as Alistair continued forward, readying the temple for the ceremony. “You should run,” Kat whispered. <br/><br/>“What?” The word was half bark, half laughter; Daveth looked at her incredulously.</p><p>She reached out and grabbed his wrist with both hands, as though she could drag him away from the Joining altar. “You...Daveth, what if you die?” She couldn’t look at him; her eyes were trained onto the ground. “All these tests, all these darkspawn...I know thieving isn’t exactly safe, but you were in a lot less danger cutting purses in Denerim.”<br/><br/>The man grinned at her, reaching forward to tug at a lock of her hair. “We all die some day, girlie. I’d risk a lot more if it meant ending the Blight,” he said. </p><p>“But - ” She shook her head. She would <em> not </em> cry. She let go of Daveth's wrist, only to use both arms to hug herself, to hold herself together. There were worse things than dying, but she shouldn't <em>know</em> that. How to tell him that Wardens dreamed of the Archdemon? How to tell him that his life would be cut short by the Calling? She'd already risked it with Duncan, and that hadn't changed what was about to happen.<br/><br/>“Maybe I’ll die. Maybe we’ll all die. But we’ll all die for sure if nobody stops the darkspawn.” His voice was quiet, almost gentle. She looked up at him, her eyelashes damp. She had forgotten that, in the game, Daveth was actually genuine about undertaking the Joining. He <em> wanted </em> to be a Grey Warden. And it had only been a cruel twist of fate that had led to his death, instead. </p><p>Duncan approached with an ominous chime of plate mail and leather. Kat whirled around to face him, her expression stormy. “At last we come to the Joining.” He continued, narrating the origin of the Grey Wardens, his voice deep and soothing as he described the process of the Joining. Daveth turned a little green beside her, but he didn’t flinch away as Duncan relayed that they would need to drink the darkspawn blood and master the taint within them.<br/><br/>“Those who survive the Joining become immune to the taint. We can sense it in the darkspawn and use it to slay the archdemon,” Alistair continued. </p><p>“Not all who <em> drink the blood </em> will survive. And those who do are forever changed. This is why the Joining is a secret. It is the price we pay.” Duncan’s gaze landed heavily on Kat; his words were familiar from the game, but he seemed to place an odd emphasis on them; she wasn’t sure what he was trying to tell her. </p><p>“We speak only a few words prior to the Joining, but these words have been said since the first. Alistair, if you would?” <br/><br/>The junior Warden stepped forward, and the firelight played off of the metal reflection of his armor, danced in the reddish-gold of his close-cropped hair. “Join us, brothers and sisters. Join us in the shadows where we stand, vigilant. Join us as we carry the duty that cannot be forsworn. And should you perish, know that your sacrifice will not be forgotten - and that one day we shall join you.” Alistair’s voice was low, level; Kat couldn’t help but feel a sense of grave importance, the weight of fate resting heavily upon her shoulders. <br/><br/>Her heart hammered in her chest. Not only for Daveth - but for herself, too. She felt like she was going to be sick, and not just at the prospect of having to drink darkspawn blood.</p><p>“Kat, step forward.”<br/><br/>Kat looked up, surprised. In the game, Daveth was always called first. She met Duncan’s somber gaze, and then she glanced into the bowl of the monstrous goblet he offered towards her. She frowned - and then caught herself before the expression turned into a smile of relief. <br/><br/><em> “Not all who drink the blood,” </em> he’d said. <br/><br/>There was barely enough in the goblet for a single mouthful. </p><p>Behind him, the two vials of darkspawn blood they’d brought from the Wilds stood empty on the table. He must have gotten rid of the extra somehow. <br/><br/>He had believed her.</p><p>It was with a sense of relief - not fear - that she reached for the Joining chalice. She could feel Duncan and Alistair and Daveth’s gaze resting heavily upon her as she tipped it towards her mouth, and let the lukewarm blood slide down her throat.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Sorry for the wait on this chapter - I had a hell of a time pulling it from the chaos of my brain. I hope this makes up for it!</p><p>And as always, thank you SO MUCH to everyone who has taken the time to bookmark and leave kudos - and especially to everyone who leaves comments! They brighten my day, and really help to encourage me to keep writing. I love each and every one of them.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. White Roses</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <h3>9:41 Dragon<br/>Haven</h3><p>When she woke, it was to darkness.</p><p>The Warden blinked against the black, but she was wholly blind without a spirit or a magical beacon near enough to help orient her in space. Indeed, the only magic in the room pulsed within Katriel herself; she frowned, her taloned fingertips dragging against the cushioned surface beneath her. A...bed? She couldn’t remember the last time she had slept in a bed. Where….?</p><p>Memories came rushing back, a torrent rather than a trickle. The Breach. The climb up to the temple. Varric. Cassandra. Solas. Leliana. </p><p>She forced herself to sit up, her body sore and aching. With a thought, she spared a small pulse of energy to speed a bolt of healing magic through herself - but there was nothing broken or sprained, nothing wrong at all, beyond a few bruises. Even the pain in her hand had largely subsided, a sleepy breath of energy along her palm. It tingled and sparked, but not with the same ferocity it had before. It hadn't killed her, then. A happy surprise.</p><p>Judging by the stillness of the air, the lack of wind and cold, she was indoors. She was clothed - not in her familiar, comfortable leathers, but in a plain cotton tunic and leggings by the feel. Her hair was a mess, tangled and wild across her back and shoulders. The makeshift bandage she’d used as a blindfold was gone, and her weapons weren’t within arm’s reach; their lack made her antsy.</p><p>Just as Katriel had swung her legs over the side of the bed, she heard a creak of hinges and a burst of frigid air. In the next moment, her spirit-sight flared to life as someone edged through the now-open doorway. Katriel’s spine went rigid; the spirit - <em>person</em> - was no one she recognized.</p><p>She jumped to her feet and had Fade-stepped across the space before the intruder could draw a single breath. There was a crash as something fell to the floor, but Katriel paid it no mind as she pinned the interloper to the nearby wall. The person - <em>woman</em> - let out a breathless little shriek as Katriel’s claws dug into her chest and shoulder.</p><p>“Who are you?” She had no patience for pleasantries, but if someone had come to kill her, then she'd take care of it. Outside of the Fade, she was on shaky ground, and she disliked that feeling of uncertainty.</p><p>The body beneath her hands quivered with fear. “I - I’m so sorry, your worship. Please, I beg your forgiveness, I - I didn’t know you were awake.” The voice marked it for a woman, as did the contours of the flesh under Katriel’s hands. The Warden curled a lip, snarling, and the intruder whimpered. “Ah! I-I...I am Nadine, my lady. P-please, I didn’t mean -”</p><p>Katriel loosened her grip, but she didn’t let the woman go just yet. “Is this another prison?” she growled.</p><p>The woman - Nadine - flinched. “I… no? I mean, I don’t think so.”</p><p>“Then where am I? Tell me.” Her patience was wearing thin. Magic curled under her hands, and she could feel Nadine trembling like a doe beneath her hands. The woman was pressing herself into the wall trying to get as far away from Katriel as possible.</p><p>“Y-You’re in Haven, my lady. They say you saved us. The breach stopped growing, just like the mark on your hand. It’s all anyone has talked about for the last three days!”</p><p>Katriel paused. She’d been unconscious for three days? The breach had been sealed. That was…good, then. She flexed her talons - and then stepped back. She could almost hear Nadine slump forward in relief as Katriel released her, the Warden’s claws snagging on rough fabric as she stepped away.</p><p>“What now, then?” Katriel asked. She knew better than to think she’d just be allowed to walk out of Haven. She was not entirely sure she <em> wanted </em> to walk out of Haven. Leliana was here, after all - and Katriel wanted to know what had happened in the ten years she'd been trapped in the Fade.<br/><br/>“I’m sure Lady Cassandra will want to know you’ve wakened. She said ‘at once’!” Nadine breathed. Katriel’s attention sharpened, predatory in its intent. <br/><br/>“And where is Lady Cassandra now?” she prompted. <br/><br/>Nadine shifted her weight from foot to foot, obviously eager to leave. “In the Chantry with the Lord Chancellor. 'At once,’ she said!” The woman tried to take off running through the open doorway, but Katriel snagged her shoulder before she could dart out of arm’s reach. Nadine instantly hunched her shoulders, and Katriel released the other woman before she could scream again.</p><p>“Lead me there.” She didn’t trust her memory of Haven’s layout, and with no way to identify a building, finding the Chantry on her own would be more trouble than it was worth. </p><p>She felt Nadine swallow thickly under her grip, but the woman nodded. “Y-yes, your worship. This way.”<br/><br/>Katriel frowned. "Why are you calling me 'your worship'?" <br/><br/>Nadine shrank. "I - I apologize, my lady. Herald. Mistress?" Kat continued to frown. <em>Harold? </em>"I didn't mean to offend. Please, this way."  </p><p>Barefoot and bare faced, Katriel followed Nadine outside. The chill wind cut through her thin clothing, and she was forced to place a makeshift barrier on her feet to protect them from the rough terrain. Even her threadbare boots had provided some basic protection, but she could make do, for now.</p><p>The path beyond her...room? House? Cell? Was lined with spirits. <em> People, </em> Katriel reminded herself. She spared them little thought, ignoring the whispers she left in her wake. This time, she was not faced with the swirling red and black and blue of anger and sorrow; these auras were rife with hope and awe and...fear. Katriel sighed, and focused on following Nadine. She couldn’t resist a quick glance up to the sky. The Breach no longer gaped open, but the seam was still bright in her spirit-sight. The Fade trickled through, held at bay - for the most part. Katriel looked away and pointedly closed her eyes.</p><p>They ascended a stretch of stone stairs, where there were yet more crowds all craning to get a look at her. She disliked what she heard, and shook her head at the bows and the salutes they offered in her direction. Nadine's exclamation of 'Harold' made more sense, once she'd heard the word a few more times. Not Harold, but Herald. As in, ‘Herald of Andraste’. Nonsense. She was no one’s herald. And if she’d ever walked by the Maker’s side, she’d left him behind a long time ago.</p><p>All told, the walk to the Chantry took perhaps five or six minutes. Nadine finally halted, her aura spiking with nervous energy. “Right through here, your worship. My lady. I will...I will announce you.” This time, the girl leaped away, and Katriel let her. She followed more slowly, feeling out each step before she committed to it; there were enough people gathered near the edges of the building that she did not fear running into walls, but she refused to walk around with her arms outstretched in front of her like some sort of invalid.</p><p>She did not see Cassandra or Roderick anywhere - at least, not until Nadine reappeared, presumably from behind another door at the far end of the hall. Katriel stepped forward, catching the thick wooden doorway in the shoulder before it slammed shut in her face.</p><p>“Have you gone completely mad? The abomination should be taken to Val Royeaux immediately, to be tried by whomever becomes the next Divine.” Roderick’s voice was raised in ire. Katriel frowned as she stepped into the room, noting Cassandra, Leliana, and two other unknown persons all gathered nearby.</p><p>“I do not believe she is guilty,” Cassandra huffed.</p><p>Katriel slid into the room, and could not help but scoff at the conversation. “I said as much,” she murmured.</p><p>The group’s attention snapped towards her, but Roderick was far too busy grandstanding to take notice of who had come in behind him. “The prisoner failed, Seeker. The Breach is still in the sky. For all you know, she intended it this way.”</p><p>Katriel snorted. “If I had <em> intended </em> anything, Chancellor, you would not still be standing here. Whoever did <em> this </em> made a shoddy job of it.” Indeed, there was no finesse to the Breach. Just a lot of power that had punched a hole directly through the veil. </p><p>Chancellor Roderick finally turned, blanching as he shifted out of Katriel’s way. He spared a look for the two strangers in the room - soldiers, judging by the smell of metal polish and the dull clink of metal that accompanied their movements - and gestured sharply towards the Warden. “Enough. Chain her. I want her prepared for travel to the capital for trial.”</p><p>Katriel scowled, her muscles tensing - but she spared the guardsmen her wrath as Cassandra belayed the Chancellor’s orders. The soldiers bowed as they left the room, and Roderick seethed with indignation. “You walk a dangerous line, Seeker,” the man hissed.</p><p>Cassandra shook her head. “The Breach is stable, but it is still a threat. I will not ignore it.”</p><p>“Let me guess,” Katriel drawled. “You still need my help.”<br/><br/>Always. They <em> always </em> needed her help. Katherine, Katriel - it seemed it didn’t matter. The world was in danger, and they came knocking at her door for her to save it all. And this time...this time, she didn’t even have her ‘visions’ to help her. Inquisition was a new game entirely, one that Katherine had never played. <br/><br/>She’d sacrificed herself for Thedas once. What would they want from her, now? She glanced down, and contemplated the mark on her hand.</p><p>Roderick scoffed. “You have done plenty. Your actions will be taken into account by the new Divine.”</p><p>Cassandra shifted; Katriel could hear the strain of leather. “Have a care, Chancellor. The Breach is not the only threat we face.”</p><p>For the first time, Leliana spoke up. “Someone was behind the explosion at the Conclave. Someone Most Holy did not expect. Perhaps they died with the others – or have allies who yet live.” Roderick stiffened, but Leliana continued before the man could interject. “We heard the voices in the temple. Most Holy called to her for help.”</p><p>“So her survival, that <em> thing </em> on her hand – all a coincidence?”</p><p>Cassandra negated the man’s supposition. “Providence. The Maker sent her to us in our darkest hour.”</p><p>Katriel growled. “Then your Maker has a shit sense of humor.” The other three stiffened, but Kat shook her head, unrepentant. She stepped towards the Seeker. “Three days ago, you called me an abomination, and now I’m your savior?”</p><p>“I was wrong. Perhaps I still am. I will not, however, pretend you were not exactly what we needed when we needed it.” Cassandra’s voice was firm. Her spirit glowed with determined conviction, a conglomerate of faith burning bright.<br/><br/>"I am not the Herald of Andraste," Kat spat.</p><p>Leliana was more pragmatic. “Does it matter? The Breach remains and your mark is our only hope of closing it.”</p><p>That was easier for her to stomach. Kat reined herself in.</p><p>“This is not for you to decide,” Roderick growled.</p><p>Suddenly, Cassandra shifted; she picked something up from a nearby surface, only to slam it down again. The noise rang in the small chamber, but the effect was lost on Katriel. Thankfully, the Seeker was delightfully descriptive.</p><p>“You know what this is, Chancellor? A writ from the Divine, granting us authority to act. As of this moment, I declare the Inquisition reborn.”</p><p>Katriel hummed under her breath. Ah. ‘Inquisition’. Made sense, now.</p><p>She ignored the following interaction between Cassandra and Roderick - though happily, the end result of their exchange resulted in the Chancellor storming from the room. Her focus had turned to Leliana. There were still so many questions. Now that she knew how much her appearance had changed, she did not fault her old friend for not recognizing her. It would be dangerous to let her ignorance continue, however. She wasn’t interested in trying to hide the truth from an organization called the ‘Inquisition’. </p><p>Cassandra whirled around, resting her hands on a surface about mid-level to her waist. A table, perhaps? Katriel stepped forward, feeling the rough grain texture with her hands as Leliana spoke. “This is the Divine’s directive: Rebuild the Inquisition of old. Find those who will stand against the chaos. We aren’t ready. We have no leader, no numbers, and now no Chantry support.”<br/><br/>Katriel smirked. “When has that stopped us before?”</p><p>She sensed Leliana’s pointed interest, a sudden shift in the flavor of the rogue’s attention - but Cassandra huffed. “We have no choice: We must act now. With you at our side.”</p><p>Katriel cocked a brow at the Seeker, running her hands over her eyes. “And what is this Inquisition of old, exactly?”</p><p>“It preceded the Chantry: People who banded together to restore order in a world gone mad.” Leliana’s explanation was quick on the heels of Kat’s question.</p><p>Cassandra elaborated. “After, they laid down their banner and formed the Templar Order. But the Templars have lost their way. We need those who can do what must be done united under a single banner once more.” She paused, took a breath. “Help us fix this before it’s too late.”</p><p>Katriel stood, weighing her options. She crossed her arms over her chest. To save the world, or not save the world. Ugh. </p><p>“Fine,” she bit off. “I’ll help. For now.”</p><p>Leliana exhaled a breath of relief. “That is all we ask.”</p><p>Katriel held up a hand to forestall their thanks - or their condemnation. She wasn’t in the mood for either. She was sore - and hungry. She hadn’t eaten since she’d fallen from the Fade, and everything else was taking a keen backseat to the idea of food. How novel. She hadn’t actually eaten physical food in…..well. Ten years. Magic alone wouldn’t be enough to sustain her outside of the Fade, apparently.</p><p>Cassandra had taken a step forward, but Katriel waved her off.<br/><br/>“Two things. One - I’m hungry. I don’t have coin, but I can get some. If we could arrange for lunch, I would be….grateful.” Also, she would be less likely to eat some poor guardsman - but she thought saying as much would be a bit overkill. She took a breath. “Two - before we go any further with plans for the Inquisition, there are things you should know. About me. I’d prefer not to tell the same story twice, so if there’s anyone else who is going to be involved in leading this Inquisition of yours, I’d suggest you bring them here.” She paused, and trailed her talons down the rough grain of the wooden table. “Preferably, we can solve both problems at the same time. I like being productive that way.”</p><p>Leliana’s voice was amused. “Do not worry about coin for the moment. I will speak with someone about arranging a midafternoon meal; Cassandra, if you wanted to see to the other matter?”</p><p>“Of course,” the Seeker allowed. <br/><br/>Katriel nodded, and stood waiting as both women momentarily left the room. She used the minute alone to walk around the edge of the table, keeping it as a focal point to help identify the size of the space she was in. There was, thankfully, little that she could trip over. <br/><br/>Leliana and Cassandra both returned within a moment or two. “I have a servant fetching a few things,” Leliana offered. “They should be here shortly.” <br/><br/>Cassandra paced along the edge of the table. “I sent a runner for Josephine and Cullen,” she added.</p><p>The food arrived before Cassandra’s duo. The smell of cheese and fresh baked bread made Kat’s mouth water, but she forced herself to go slow. She wasn’t sure how her stomach would react to so long without solid food. She had polished off at least half the loaf of bread before two more people entered the room.<br/><br/>One, she identified as Commander Cullen. The other was new.</p><p>Leliana had taken up a position against one of the walls, but she straightened when the others walked in. It was Cassandra that took the lead on introductions, however.</p><p>She gestured towards Cullen. Sick-stubborn-righteous-guilty-pain. His aura was just as derelict as she remembered from the pass. “You’ve met Commander Cullen, leader of the Inquisition’s forces,” Cassandra offered.</p><p>The Commander offered a short nod, his armor chiming. “It was only for a moment on the field. I’m…pleased you survived.” The tone of his voice made it clear that he was not entirely sure that he <em> was </em> pleased - but then, she remembered Cullen was a templar. He couldn’t have been happy about an abominated mage being responsible for closing the Breach.</p><p>Katriel nodded, resting her weight on the table as she placed her precious loaf of bread back onto the sideboard.</p><p>“This is lady Josephine Montilyet, our ambassador and chief diplomat.”</p><p>Kat turned her attention to the unknown other. Her aura was very….mellow. And yet, beneath the soft exterior, red-orange-green burned low. She nodded in approval. A core of steel, then. Good.</p><p>“I’ve heard much. A pleasure to meet you at last.” The ambassador’s voice was lightly accented and lovely. Kat huffed. Her manners were out of practice, but Josephine was too polite to blow off completely. “And you,” she offered thinly.</p><p>“And of course you know Sister Leliana.”</p><p>The rogue stepped forward. “My position here involves a degree of -”</p><p>Cassandra interrupted. “She is our spymaster.”</p><p>Leliana sighed. “Yes. Tactfully put, Cassandra.”</p><p>Katriel smirked, but the expression faded as it seemed no further souls were incoming.<br/><br/>There was a pause, a beat of silence. “No Varric? Solas?” she asked to the room at large.</p><p>Cassandra huffed. “Varric is a rogue and a liar - and we know precious little about Solas, as invaluable as his knowledge has been so far.”</p><p>Kat hummed - and then shrugged. It hardly mattered. Assuming they worked together in the future, the two would find out eventually anyways.</p><p>“Fine.” She weighed her words, trying to decide the best way to go about what she had planned. “First, I need you to tell me what happened after the Fifth Blight. What was the Conclave? What do you mean about the world being in chaos?”</p><p>After a few exclamations of shock and disbelief, the group launched into an explanation. Katriel listened raptly as they spoke on the increasing strain on the mage/templar relationship, the rebellion of the Circles, and the destruction of Kirkwall’s Chantry. Katriel frowned at this last. She hadn’t gotten a chance to play through the entirety of Dragon Age 2 before she’d woken up in Thedas, but….It all seemed very extreme. A natural escalation of the disparity between the factions, maybe, but she wondered if this was just another way her meddling had messed everything up.<br/><br/>Of course, there was another possibility she hadn't considered before now. She'd fallen into a world on accident once already. Who was to say that she'd come back to the same world state that she had left? Leliana was here, and she recognized all of the others save for Josephine - but that didn't mean that this was still <em>her</em> Thedas. She sighed. This was more complicated than it should have been.<br/><br/>She set aside her misgivings. What was done was done. Nothing for it now but to move forward. If this was her world, then she'd have leverage she could use from her time as Kat and as Urthemiel. If it wasn't, if this was a different timeline entirely, well...she at least had the benefit of being familiar with the setting, if not the narrative.</p><p>Judging by Cassandra and Leliana’s descriptions, the destruction of the Conclave had been wasteful in more ways than one, it seemed. The loss of life had been unfortunate, of course - but the lost potential to mend the rift between the mages and templars would likely come back to bite the world in the ass.</p><p>“And the Hero of Ferelden?” she asked, fishing.</p><p>Her question fell into the silence like a stone tossed into a still pond. Ripples of emotion pulsed through her audience. Leliana’s aura grew even more closed off. Cassandra’s pulsed with disappointment, sorrow, respect. And Josephine held her sympathy, her awe, close to her chest. Cullen stepped in, his explanation matter-of-fact. “She lost her life against the Archdemon in the Battle of Denerim. Her sacrifice ended Fifth Blight.”<br/><br/>"Tell me about her," Katriel demanded.<br/><br/>"There is not much to tell," Cassandra offered. "Warden Katherine was human, one of the last of the Fereldan Grey Wardens. She was reportedly recruited at the start of the Blight, but no one knows where she came from. She utilized the Grey Warden treaties to gather forces and halt the darkspawn incursion before it spread to the rest of the world."</p><p>Katriel cracked her eyes open, only so that she could squint in Cullen’s general direction. “And she died in Denerim? They found her body?”</p><p>There was an awkward pause. “Well...no, I don’t - “ Cullen stuttered.</p><p>Leliana spoke up, her voice both rigid and somber. “Both the Archdemon and the Warden vanished at the end of the battle. There was an explosion of some sort.”</p><p>Katriel nodded. This, then, was confirmation that this was still her version of Thedas. So they assumed that she had died. Little wonder. But it would be stupid to let them keep believing it. She was a Warden, and she was <em> more </em> than a Warden - and if there were to be battles ahead, they should strategize with that fact in mind. She had kept too many secrets to have patience with hoarding any more.</p><p>She sighed. The first step was going to be a kick in the pants. “You’re wrong.”</p><p>There was a pause. </p><p>“Pardon?” Josephine asked.</p><p>“What do you mean? Wrong how?” Cullen demanded.</p><p>Katriel shrugged. “Well, I’m not dead.”</p><p>There was a deadly breath of quiet.</p><p>“You mean to say….oh. Oh.” Cassandra gaped. "Surely not. You would - "</p><p>Anger radiated from the opposite corner. Katriel kept her attention riveted on Leliana. “That jest is made in poor taste,” the bard murmured, her voice low and dangerous. Leliana moved towards the door, every movement stiff.</p><p>“Leli.” It was a single word. A nickname. Ages and ages ago, but still familiar to her tongue.</p><p>The rogue stiffened. She whirled around, her hands moving to the daggers Katriel knew she kept concealed about her person. “I knew the Warden. Personally. She was my friend, my companion. You are <em> not </em> her,” Leliana hissed.</p><p>Katriel sighed, brushing a tangled lock of hair out of her face. “Ten years trapped in the Fade will change a girl. Or so I’m told. I only had spirits for company, so they might have been a bit biased.”</p><p>“You...consorted with spirits?” Cullen pressed.</p><p>“Ten years?” Josephine exclaimed.</p><p>“You...you had mentioned to Solas that you had been physically in the Fade. I thought you meant just for a moment, just before you stepped out of the rift. But...ten years?” Cassandra breathed. “Do you mean…?”</p><p>The question trailed off, and Katriel risked glancing away from Leliana to nod her head in confirmation. “Yes. When I killed the Archdemon, I was transported to the Fade. There was some sort of...magical backlash, I suppose. I’m no longer the Katherine Forsythe you remember, but she is still me.”</p><p>“You said...you said your friends used to call you ‘Kat’,” Cassandra marveled. </p><p>Katriel allowed herself a small smile, there and gone again. “They did.”</p><p>Leliana rounded on her, chainmail chiming. “How do we know this is not a lie? A trick? You could be a demon, pretending to be her.”</p><p>Cullen hummed. “Poorly, I might add. You look nothing like her.”</p><p>Katriel shrugged. “Why would I lie? If I wanted to impress you, there are more palatable ways. If I just wanted to hide my real identity, I could have come up with a different name. And if I was a demon, I certainly wouldn’t be standing in a secluded room, unarmed, in the presence of a Seeker, a Templar, and two bards.”</p><p>“Former templar,” Cullen swiftly corrected.</p><p>But Josephine gasped in surprise. “How - “</p><p>Kat shrugged. “I can smell the polish on the dagger in your right sleeve. You stand closer to Leliana than anyone else in the room, and you keep your weight mostly on your toes, like her. It would be stupid to assume you were just some lowly paper-pusher.” She shifted, trying to ignore the temptation of the food she could still smell on the table in front of her. “If it makes you feel better about the potential demon aspect, I could try to submit to a smite, but I cannot promise how I’ll react. Magic sustained me for so long, I’m not certain what the lack of it would do to me.” She paused, considering. "Most likely I would try to kill you. If the smite didn't kill me first. So perhaps lets not try to find out, hmmn?"</p><p>“Katherine couldn’t use magic,” Leliana noted, almost desperately.</p><p>“No. She couldn’t.” A pause, a brief flicker of consideration. “But Urthemiel could.”</p><p>Another long, hard breath of silence. She could feel them exchange glances over her head, the thread of tension and mounting wonder.</p><p>She waved her hand in idle dismissal. “As I said, magical backlash. I could offer a few magically technical theories, but in truth, I have no idea <em> why </em> this happened, or how. I <em> did </em> kill the Archdemon, but instead of our spirits being destroyed by the battle, our souls moreso…fused together. I’m not strictly Katherine any more, but I am not Urthemiel, either. I have the memories and the skills of both - and I’m grateful for it. Magic has saved my life more times than I can count.” She shrugged. “The cosmetic differences didn’t occur to me until I saw myself in the rift’s memory.”</p><p>“So you...you’re…” Cullen placed his hand on the pommel of his sword. “Maker’s Breath. You're an Archdemon?”<br/><br/>"No," Kat corrected sharply. "I am not. Archdemons are Old Gods that have been tainted by the Blight. This body was Katherine's, and the only taint within it is that inherent to her status as a Grey Warden. I have no connection to the darkspawn beyond that. Technically speaking, I am still a Warden - though I suppose if you wanted to be <em>painfully</em> accurate, I am <em>also</em> still one of the Old Gods." She frowned, dragging her claws across the table. "I could probably alter my physical form to more closely resemble what you remember of Katherine, if that would make you feel better." Perhaps they would be less jumpy if she shapeshifted her more dragon-y bits to something more palpably human.<br/><br/>"And you say its <em>not</em> an abomination?" Cullen murmured darkly.<br/><br/>"<em>I</em> say I'm not an abomination, Commander," Kat growled.</p><p>“Why did you not tell us sooner?” Cassandra demanded. "If we had known who you were - "</p><p>Katriel snorted. “You believed I had killed Justinia - and I wasn’t wholly certain that sealing the Breach wouldn’t kill me. The details about my past hardly seemed relevant at the time.”</p><p>Josephine was murmuring wonderingly to herself, scribbling something on a piece of parchment, if the scratching sounds coming from her direction were anything to go by. “If have....so many questions. If this is true, this could change everything.”</p><p>“I will need some time to think about this,” Leliana suddenly exclaimed. “She...you...have been dead for ten years. I’m not sure I’m willing to just believe you based on an idle claim.”</p><p>Kat frowned. “Hardly idle. What would it take to prove it to you?” She’d rather get these useless games over with. The faster they all believed, the faster they could talk about more important things.</p><p>“Tell me something. Tell me something <em> only </em> she would know.” The demand was cold, unfeeling, but Leliana's aura shifted uproariously. </p><p>It took Katriel only a moment to decide what to say. There were a few things that might be relevant, but she recalled a similar conversation she’d had with Duncan, all those years ago. Sometimes it was the truth that hit the hardest that was the best sort of proof. “You once saw a white rose on a dead bush in Lothering. When we were in Redcliffe, just before the Landsmeet, you found another white rose on your pillow in the arl’s keep.”</p><p>Leliana stood, mute, her spirit fluctuating wildly with surges of conflicting emotion - and then she turned, and walked silently out of the room.</p><p>The others were quiet, lost in their own thoughts. And then - </p><p>“A rose on her pillow?” Cassandra asked pointedly.</p><p>Katriel smiled, and it was a sad, solemn thing. “I paid two whole gold pieces to buy the damn thing from the florist.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Alright friends, now we're in it for the long haul. The major Origins chapters are over with - from now on, all Origins events will be smaller flashbacks worked into the main chapters. Inquisition, ahoy!</p>
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<a name="section0010"><h2>10. First Step</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p></p><div class="center">
  <p><br/>Art Commissioned from xXAlfax, color edits by HuggableSword</p>
</div></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <h3>9:41 Dragon<br/>Haven</h3><p>The next several days passed swiftly. She was out of practice with the concept of time, and the specific rituals that stemmed from the accounting of minutes, hours, and days. The idea that meals were eaten only at certain intervals, and that people slept during certain windows of the day, were habits that she had to forcibly remind herself of. Katriel did not settle into her own sleep schedule until three days after she'd had the conversation with the advisors - and, as usual, she had no dreams.</p><p>She quickly learned the layout of Haven - out of necessity, if nothing else. It had changed from her memory of it, and the burgeoning Inquisition had requisitioned much of the surrounding thoroughfare. She’d only learned about the sprawl of the military tents when she’d inadvertently stumbled into a cluster of them near the town’s center square. Empty, the tents were no more than lifeless cloth and wood - all but invisible to her spirit-sight. She’d only managed to avoid turning them into an impromptu bonfire when Varric came to extricate her from the resultant tumble. </p><p>“Easy does it there, Sparky. Setting the camp on fire would be bad for your image.”</p><p>Kat didn’t need to see the dwarf’s face to know that he was laughing at her. Even so, she took his hand - after extinguishing fistfulls of flame, of course - and allowed him to haul her to her feet. </p><p>“What image?” she groused irritably.</p><p>“The one that Josephine is building for you. Gotta say, the whole resurrected Warden thing came out of left field. Even <em> I </em> was surprised - and trust me, after the shit I’ve seen, that’s saying something.”</p><p>Kat grimaced. “I wasn’t resurrected, Varric. I never died.”</p><p>Varric shrugged, his spectral shoulders rising and falling. “You might as well have. Did you know they built a statue of you in Redcliffe? Face it, Sparky. You’re larger than life - and now with this Herald business, you’re gonna get even bigger. Not even I could see this coming, and I write fiction for a living.”</p><p>“Tell you what. Next time I fight an Archdemon, I’ll try to be more predictable.” Kat brushed off her clothes, even as Varric threw back his head and laughed.</p><p>“Sparky, I don’t think you could do predictable if you tried.”</p><p>After that, Katriel co-opted Varric as her dedicated tour guide. Someone - she suspected Josephine - had assigned Nadine as Katriel’s permanent maid, but the girl was so terrified of Katriel that she often could do nothing but tremble and stutter in Kat’s presence. She was embarrassingly relieved to be freed of her obligations as Kat’s housekeeper, and Katriel wasn’t sad to see her go. She had never had a maid before, and she certainly didn’t see the need to break with that trend now. </p><p>She suspected that Varric already knew all of that when he’d helped her out of the collapsed pile of tents.</p><p>With someone else leading the way, Kat could navigate the paths readily enough, and Varric was adept at describing their surroundings in a way that helped paint a mental picture of the town. After the first day and a half, Katriel could find her way to all of the major landmarks without tripping over her own feet - or running into some hapless inanimate object. </p><p>Varric was also exceedingly familiar with most of Haven’s residents, and he was all too happy to introduce her to the noteworthy figures. That was how she met Seggrit, a thoroughly unpleasant merchant who sold his wares at a questionable ‘discount’ - and Cabot, the dwarf who ran the bar in the tavern. It was also through Varric that Katriel first learned that Solas was an elf.</p><p>They’d been talking about their upcoming journey to the Hinterlands - apparently, a Chantry Cleric by the name of Giselle had asked to speak with her, and both Cassandra and Leliana thought that persuading the woman to their side would help to lend credence to the budding Inquisition. Kat was more interested in the reports of roving bands of templars and rogue mages terrorizing the region, but she’d agreed to go and speak with this Mother Giselle all the same. Varric had made an offhand comment about how having an elven mage in the party might help to reassure people of the Inquisition’s acceptance of diversity.</p><p>“Wait. Solas is an elf?” Kat asked. She frowned, thoughtful. She had assumed that Solas was so bright in her spirit-sight because he was a mage - but perhaps it was due to his race, instead? She hadn’t had a chance to talk to the man since she’d woken up after sealing the rift. Were there no other elves in Haven, then?</p><p>There was a pause from her companion. “You couldn’t tell?” Varric asked, taken aback.</p><p>Kat snorted. “No. Physically, everyone pretty much looks the same to me.” She tapped a taloned finger to the long length of cloth over her eyes. She’d taken up the habit of covering her eyes with the makeshift blindfold every morning, to help minimize the headaches and the dizziness that otherwise occurred when the light assaulted her eyes and confused her spirit-sight. “You’re all just people-shaped clusters of spiritual energy.”</p><p>There was another pause. “Sparky, I hate to ask, but - “</p><p>“Yes, Varric, I know you’re a dwarf.”</p><p>Her companion chuckled. “Just making sure. So, want to tell me how that works, exactly?”<br/><br/>Kat paused, trying to find the right words. “Dwarves are cut off from the fade. You aren’t as...bright as everyone else. I can see you, but your energy is more like an echo, rather than an active presence. For everyone else...I don’t see specific features, really. Just unique auras. I couldn’t tell you what anyone actually looks like, but I could probably tell you what they were feeling at any given time.”</p><p>Varric whistled. “Bet that’ll be a hit at parties.”</p><p>Kat tucked the knowledge that Solas was an elf away, back into the dark recesses of her mind. It wasn’t relevant in the immediate sense, but she wasn’t the type to squander knowledge for knowledge’s sake. She and Varric continued on, tacitly ignoring the awed stares that Kat attracted everywhere she went - and Kat didn’t comment on Varric’s new habit of casually describing the physical attributes of the people they came across.</p><p>Her days settled into a semblance of a routine. She’d go to the Tavern in the morning, eat breakfast, and then head to the Chantry. She, Josephine, Leliana, and Cullen would plot, plan, and strategize until around midday, when they broke for lunch. Varric would join her at the Tavern, and he would help guide her around Haven, charmingly disguising the invite as a casual stroll around the town. Varric was all too interested in Kat’s time as a Warden, and their conversations were often punctuated by the faint scratch of pen on parchment.</p><p>Kat found that she actively enjoyed the dwarf’s company, which was more than she could say about some of the other people around Haven. Cullen still treated her with veiled distrust. When he wasn’t gruff and dismissive, the man was awkward and reticent. Knowing some of what he’d been through during the collapse of the Kinloch Circle, she didn’t hold Cullen’s prejudice against him - but she wasn’t willing to roll over in the face of his single-minded pursuit of bigotry, either. </p><p>Cullen’s saving grace was that the soldiers respected him - and that he was an exceedingly competent commander. This was never made more clear than in conferences around the war table. Since Katherine usually favored the most direct approach to solving a problem, she and Cullen usually saw eye to eye on matters of strategy, at the very least.</p><p>Roderick continued to be a monumental pain in the ass. He rallied the citizenry against the fledgeling Inquisition, disparaging their efforts and their legitimacy. Katriel found herself envisioning the man’s death with increasing frequency.</p><p>Contrarily, she got along with Josephine fairly well. At first, their relationship was tied up in political peculiarities. There was some initial back and forth over whether Kat should rightfully be addressed as ‘Herald’ in official correspondences. </p><p>“I told you before. I’m no one’s Herald,” Kat finally exclaimed.</p><p>“The people believe otherwise. Rumors are already spreading. The remaining Clerics have declared it blasphemy, and we heretics for harboring you,” Josephine explained.</p><p>“Then make it clear. Denounce the claims. I am not Andraste’s Herald, and I will not be made into some sort of religious figurehead.” Her memories of life as Urthemiel were more than enough to dissuade her on that front. Power was a heady drug, but she was not interested in indulging worship.</p><p>Josephine shifted uneasily, silk rustling with her movements. “That is perhaps not -”</p><p>“Josephine,” Kat snapped, interrupting the diplomat. “We already have enough problems trying to convince the world of our sincerity. If we are already running into opposition because of this claim of holy sanction, the easiest way to quell that would be to reassure people that the rumors are not true. I am already an abomination, a Warden who came back to life, the rogue who became a mage. I don’t want to be the Herald on top of everything else.”</p><p>Josphine was quiet for a moment, her pen tapping softly on her tablet. “I...can see how that might be burdensome. What would you prefer to be called, then?”</p><p>“I would rather the world call me by a title I actually earned, and by the name I actively chose,” Kat growled.</p><p>Thus, ‘Honorable Warden Katriel Forsythe’ became her official address thereafter. Josephine assured her that keeping her last name would help to cement the connection between her past and her present - at least, in an official sense.</p><p>Once that was settled, they had to decide how they would announce her miraculous return to the world of the living. Josephine drafted at least a dozen letters to various dignitaries announcing the Inquisitions reformation, and Katriel was reluctantly forced to sign each one. As the bearer of the mark, her visible support of the Inquisition was integral to their future stability - according to Josephine.</p><p>Katriel pointedly did not think about what her signature might look like, unable to read or even see the letters she scrawled across the crisp parchment. Josephine assured her that Kat’s former status as a Warden and her actions during the Fifth Blight would buy them much needed support....and to a point, she wasn’t wrong. Ravens flooded the skies around Haven, many bearing letters expressing either skepticism or joy at Katriel’s return. </p><p>From the King of Ferelden, there was no word. Leliana admitted that she had sent Alistair a personal missive along with the formal correspondence, but not even she had received a reply. </p><p>Similarly, there was no official response from Weisshaupt or Amaranthine. The Wardens were conspicuously silent on the matter of Katriel’s return. Josephine tried to put a positive spin on it, but Katriel had to wonder if the Order saw her return as a source of shame, rather than of celebration.</p><p><em> In Death, Sacrifice</em>. </p><p>Katriel hadn’t quite managed to honor that particular piece of the parable.</p><p>Tacitly, Josephine and the others had agreed not to spread word of her joining with Urthemiel - but the Order would have probably had things to say on the matter if she had. Kat didn’t care one way or the other. For the most part, she allowed Josephine to build her image unimpeded. </p><p>As for the others - Cassandra and Kat got along well enough. After Cass had gotten over the initial shock of learning Katriel’s previous identity, there was always an undercurrent of awe to the warrior’s demeanor. Ignoring that, Cass’s no-nonsense attitude tended to mesh well with Katriel’s similarly abrupt nature. Once she was able to convince the warrior to start training with her, Katriel spent most of her evenings with Cassandra in the sparring circle.</p><p>And Leliana...There was an undercurrent of tension between her and Leliana, a certain awkwardness that Katriel had chosen not to acknowledge. Though the part of her that had been Katherine missed her old friend, ten years was a long time. The Fade had changed her, and Thedas had changed Leliana. Neither of them were the people the other had once known. They worked well enough together, but there was a distance between them now that neither of them seemed inclined to breach.</p><p>The day before their scheduled departure to the Hinterlands, the war table meeting was more strained than usual. </p><p>Cassandra opened the discussion without preamble. “I mentioned that your mark needs more power to close the Breach for good.”</p><p>Kat nodded. The Breach wasn’t fully closed - though it wasn’t spreading, either. The mark on her hand was stable, and Kat had spent no small amount of time poking at the magic with her power. Her abilities were substantial, but if they wanted to guarantee success, it would be better to supplement her magic with another source. “What are our options?” she asked.</p><p>Leliana stepped forward. “We must approach the rebel mages for help.”</p><p>Cullen swiftly negated the spymaster’s idea. “And I still disagree. The Templars could serve just as well.”</p><p>Cassandra huffed. “We need power, Commander. Enough magic poured into that mark–”</p><p>“Might destroy us all. Templars could suppress the breach, weaken it so–”</p><p>“Pure speculation,” Leliana interjected.</p><p>Cullen drew himself up, a brief burst of crimson flashing through the sickly blues of his aura. “<em>I </em> was a Templar. I know what they’re capable of.”</p><p>Kat shrugged. “This is pointless. Let’s just ask them both.”</p><p>There was a lull in the discussion, a strained but thoughtful pause. “What do you mean, both?” Cullen eventually demanded.</p><p>“Why are our options mutually exclusive?” Kat countered. “If we approach the mages <em> and </em> the templars, then then we will be in a much better position to counter the Breach. Best case scenario, they both see sense, and we needn’t worry about choosing sides. Worst case...If both factions know that we are in talks with the ‘enemy’, then if one doesn’t agree to help, the other will. They’ll want to be seen to be on whatever side the other denounces.”</p><p>“You would play them against each other,” Cassandra observed. Kat couldn’t quite tell if the woman’s tone was awed or disgusted. Perhaps a bit of both. She smirked, tugging at a long lock of hair as she spoke. </p><p>“They’ll play themselves. We just need to help them along,” she noted.</p><p>Josephine scrawled something on her note board. “It’s a sound idea. Unfortunately, neither group will even speak to us yet. The Chantry’s denouncement of you rather limits our options, and approaching the mages or templars for help is currently out of the question.”</p><p>Kat shrugged. “Then I talk to Mother Giselle. That was the whole point of this trip to the Hinterlands, wasn’t it? She’ll help legitimize our cause - assuming she believes in it.”</p><p>“Indeed,” Leliana offered noncommittally. <br/><br/>Cullen shifted, pacing across the end of the table. “Look for other opportunities to expand the Inquisition’s influence while you’re there.”</p><p>Josephine nodded. “We need agents to extend our reach beyond this valley, and you’re better suited than anyone to recruit them.”</p><p> “We leave in the morning. I trust you are prepared?” Cassandra asked, turning towards Katriel.</p><p>The Warden tapped the wood grain on the table in front of her. “I will have everything I need by the end of today,” she promised. </p><p>In fact, as soon as their meeting was dismissed, Katriel made her way to the blacksmith’s. She’d made do with basic clothing up until now - spare tunics and well-worn leathers procured via Josephine - but a longer journey would necessitate proper gear. She’d spent far too long trekking through the wilds of Ferelden during the Fifth Blight not to value a proper set of boots.</p><p>Varric had introduced her to Harritt several days ago, and they had managed to draw up a mutually agreeable set of weapon and armor schematics. For the most part, Katriel dictated what she wanted, and chose the materials largely based on tactile feedback. From there, Harrit made suggestions, and Kat largely deferred to him when it came to aesthetic components. Kat found working with the man thoroughly enjoyable - moreso when she brought two new sets of armor, a pair of traveling boots, a longsword and a dagger back to her cabin.</p><p>The first set of armor was the utilitarian set. A reinforced leather bodice was covered with a woven top, and its loose, short sleeves ensured that her range of movement wasn’t compromised. Her arms were covered with makeshift nugskin gauntlets, which were held in place by various buckles. Her long leather pants were tied at the hips for a custom fit, and over top of the pants, around each leg, she placed a sort of leather harness that was intended to keep various pouches, daggers, throwing knives, and other minutiae within hand’s reach. </p><p>The second set of armor was heavier, intended for longer battles and more formal events. Her memory of Tevinter fashion was shaky at best, tainted by centuries trapped in the Fade - but no one could deny the intimidation factor at work in the design she’d envisioned. Harrit had reassured her that the Grey Warden influences he’d added to the armor would help tie the whole ensemble together, but Kat didn’t even try the second set of armor on before she placed the entire bundle in the chest at the end of her bed. The lighter, more maneuverable set would be adequate enough for the journey to the Hinterlands.</p><p>She was especially pleased with the sword. After having described the way she had used her sword and scabbard to find her way in the Fade, Harrit had been inspired to create something that would work in a similar fashion without compromising the edge of the blade. What resulted was something Katriel compared to an Indonesian Jian. The long blade had a relatively thin profile, was tucked into a correspondingly long scabbard, and lacked the ubiquitous cross-guard. She could utilize the sheathed sword as a makeshift cane if necessary, and it wouldn’t be immediately apparent that the weapon was anything but. </p><p>Even her dagger was a miniature work of art - or so Harrit assured her. Kat approved of the weapon’s sturdiness, and enjoyed the texture of the leather-wrapped grip. When she tested the edge of the blade, she found it to be adequately keen. That was good enough for her; she sheathed the dagger with a satisfied smile.</p><p>The general feeling of anticipation that suffused her body was a familiar one. It had hounded her throughout the Fifth Blight - and still again throughout her journeys in the Fade. Battle readiness, Zevran would have called it. The thrill of the unknown. The sweet ache of an imminent fight. <em>Anticipation.</em> </p><p>Granted, he would have been speaking in innuendo, but Kat found the description to be an apt one all the same. </p><p>Tomorrow the fight would begin anew. The tutorial was over, and she’d been called upon to help save the world one more time. Fate had sunken into her bones and settled there, humming a discordant note. What else could she do, but find a song that drowned it out?</p><p>Without any other personal belongings to ready, there was only one more thing she needed to do. </p><p>She exited her cabin, navigating the now-familiar paths of Haven with ease. She passed Varric on her way, pausing only long enough to lift her hand in greeting. It had already been determined that Cass and Varric would accompany her to the Hinterlands; she’d see the dwarf in the morning. She continued on her way, slowly navigating the winding trail near the edge of the village.<br/><br/>Further up the path, a bright-burning spirit stood silhouetted against the sickly light of the Breach. It turned to face her as she approached, and Katriel was forced to tamp down an all too familiar flare of hunger. The mark on her arm flared, a brief spark of acid green.</p><p>She sighed. </p><p>“Hello, Solas.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Apologies for the wait! Mother's day hit me over the head last weekend, and I couldn't find time to squeeze out a chapter in between all the drama. But! Guys, check out the new reference of Katriel I got from Alfa!! The lady is a goddess, let me tell you. She captured Kat (and Katherine!) so well. So for those of you who wanted a before and after picture, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. :D</p>
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<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Hinterlands</h2></a>
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    <h3>9:41 Dragon<br/>Haven</h3><p>Katriel faced Solas with a frown fixed sternly on her face. The mage was bright and mercurial in her spirit-sight, enticing in a way she had managed to forget in the days since she’d last seen him. Now that she was looking for it, the source was obvious - magic, pure and keen and cutting, rippled through his tightly-coiled aura. Solas all but glowed with it. Kat wasn’t surprised - he’d proven his aptitude in battle - but even so, she found the man’s vibrance hard to ignore. Like trying to ignore the sun while staring up at the sky; she could do it, but she was all too aware of his presence. </p><p>She’d been able to live, more or less, off of ambient magic alone in the Fade, but that hadn’t been true since she’d woken up in Haven. Her mortal body needed mortal sustenance, <em>real</em> food. Cut off from the Fade by the Veil, she could not absorb enough magic to stunt the biological needs of her all-too-physical form. Even so, the gnawing, empty ache in her stomach was all too familiar. Sometimes, she’d had to consume a spirit - or more often, a demon, those were more annoying - in order to sate her hunger. Obviously, she had not done anything of the sort since she’d stepped out of the Fade. </p><p>It was odd that her body would remind her of that fact now, of all times.</p><p>“Ah, Katriel. The Chosen of Andraste. The blessed hero sent to save us all.“ The man’s subtle accent was most noticeable around the consonants - but rather than endearing him to her, the words fanned the flames of Katriel’s temper.<br/><br/>“Well I’m not saving <em> you </em> if you keep up with that nonsense,” she bit off.</p><p>The man paused, taken aback. Beneath the wellspring of his magic, emotion surged and receded in the space of a breath - and then he shook his head. “Ah. You think I am mocking you. This age has made people cynical.”</p><p>Kat crossed her arms. “No, surviving the Blight and sharing my soul with an ancient Tevinter dragon god made me cynical. But the mockery isn’t helping either way."</p><p>There was another breath of silence. "My apologies," the apostate offered. "My words were not intended to offend."<br/><br/>Kat nodded her acquiescence, and the silence stretched again. It was awkward.</p><p>“So it’s true, then? What the people are saying. I had seen the official proclamation, but I thought perhaps the tale was an exaggeration.” The elf’s voice was careful, measured. He was choosing his words deliberately, the cadence of every syllable deliberately selected.</p><p>Katriel growled. “The world would be a much nicer place if ugly truths always acceded to the assumption of melodrama.”</p><p>The man hummed, a thoughtful note. “Quite true. You display a degree of wisdom far beyond your years,” Solas said.<br/><br/>"I suppose that depends. Are you judging by the flesh, or the spirit?" Katriel narrowed her focus. "Dragons can live a very long time, Solas."<br/><br/>He shifted his weight from one foot to another; Katriel heard the faint shift of cloth as the movement translated to his spiritual figure. There was a smile in his voice as he spoke again, but his aura bubble with something Katriel couldn't quite put her finger on. “You realize, of course, that this is...extraordinary. The implications are staggering. When I first examined you, I sensed that your spirit housed an ancient power. At first, I suspected something more mundane. A residual effect of your journeys in the Fade, perhaps, or a lingering attachment to one of the benign spirits there. Certain mages who focus on spiritual healing sometimes feel as you do, though to a lesser degree. I assumed your power stemmed from something of that nature, but I see now that is not the case. Tell me - how did this situation come to pass?”</p><p>“You would know better than I would.”</p><p>The mage went still, stiff. “Why would you say that?”</p><p>Katriel peered at him behind her blindfold, picking apart the fluctuation of his aura. Interesting.</p><p>“Varric said that you were our resident Fade expert." It was a truth, but not the whole truth. She, too, could play at half-truths and deception, though she usually disdained doing so. "Was he wrong?” she pressed, her tone just a touch too sweet.<br/><br/>Tension bled out of Solas’s form. Relief? Katriel’s interest sharpened, but Solas spoke before she could prod more sharply at this newfound sensitivity. “I make no claims of experticity,” the mage noted calmly. He adjusted his stance, hands clasped behind his back. “But it’s comforting that whatever qualities I lack, Varric will invent for me.”</p><p>“You and me both,” Katriel snorted. “I’m pretty sure he’s already started on some sort of unofficial memoir of my time with the Wardens, if the number of questions I’ve answered in the last couple days are anything to go by.”</p><p>The mage shook his head. “Be that as it may, I have come across a great many things in my journeys into the Fade. I have seen the dreams of lost civilizations, and watched as hosts of spirits clashed to reenact wars both ancient and forgotten. But nothing I have seen comes close to describing your current circumstances.”</p><p>Katriel frowned. His words had the ring of truth this time. “I can’t tell you much. I killed the Archdemon, got sucked into the Fade, and then…” She shrugged, claws running idly across her forearm. “And then, it was either join with Urthemiel, or die. I chose not to die.”</p><p>“A fortuitous decision for Thedas, it seems,” Solas commented lightly. He fell silent for a long moment. “How much of the Archdemon’s memories are accessible to you?” the mage asked suddenly.</p><p>Ah. Here was the meat of his concern. Katriel sighed. “Most, but not all. It is usually easier to frame my experiences in the context of having once been Katherine, but I am just as much Urthemiel as Warden.” She shook her head. “Perhaps moreso, given that the taint in my blood had already been sealed away when I woke up in the Fade.” She could still feel it, a distant echo rather than a writhing song. But the taint had long since ceased to burn through her blood as it once had Katherine’s. </p><p>She clenched her fists, memories dredged up to the forefront now that she allowed her thoughts to linger. “I have never named myself a god. It was the elves, and the ancient people of Tevinter, who turned awe into worship. I don't remember anything but bits and pieces before the Veil, and only cloudy fragments of what came next. But every time I reached beyond the Veil to the waking world, looking for answers, the peoples' worship grew. My body was sealed in stone, but my spirit was trapped in the Fade, and in neither prison could I stay silent. I wonder what might have been different if I had." If she had just been able to stop the song, if she had just suffered in silence...But hundreds of years was a very long time, even in the Fade. <br/><br/>She sighed. "One by one, I sensed the other 'Gods' go out into the world, tainted by the Blight - and knew when they were destroyed, when their song was silenced in the depths of their madness. And then, finally, the darkspawn found my body where it was trapped in the earth. They woke me, and the Taint tied my spirit back to my body, but it was not freedom that it offered me. The darkspawn had traded my prison of stone for one of flesh, and I saw my own end come in the form of a little girl with sea green eyes. And then my end became my salvation.”</p><p>She shifted, her fingers idly tracing the pommel of her sword. “I will not pretend that this is normal, by any stretch of the imagination. But I am here now, and as far as I can see, the world still needs my help. It cannot afford to be picky about what form that help comes in.” She waved her marked hand towards the mage to make her point. “This mark, the Breach...I will work with what I am given. But no, Solas - I was not sent by Andraste, and I have never believed in the Maker. I do not know what happened to bring Katherine and Urthemiel together, and I will not cheapen it by attributing it divine will alone. And I will not be named a savior until the actual saving is done.” She clicked a talon on the hard surface of her scabbard for emphasis.<br/><br/>Solas had been pointedly silent during Katriel's explanation, but now he hummed. "And do you remember why you were imprisoned? How you were sealed away?"<br/><br/>Katriel scowled. "No. That fragment is missing."<br/><br/>Another flicker of aura. Relief? He released a breath Katriel hadn't known he'd been holding, but covered it up well. "The Chantry believes that the Maker created the Veil," he said, changing the subject. There was a question in there somewhere.<br/><br/>"They can believe me or not. It doesn't change the truth." She grinned. "I'm not especially fond of the Chantry."<br/><br/>That startled a laugh out of him. "They have given you little reason to love them. In either guise, or so I would guess." A pause. "You are surprisingly honest about yourself. It is not what I would have expected."<br/><br/>Katriel shrugged. "I am what I am, Solas. Why lie about it?" There were some things she wouldn't advertise, but there would be little reason to lie if asked a direct question. She was, after all, a blind Warden Archdemon from another world. What wasn't to love about that?<br/><br/>“Indeed,” Solas noted softly. As though coming to a decision. Katriel arched a brow, but the man only nodded.  “I will stay, then. At least until the Breach has been closed.”<br/><br/>Katriel snorted. “Was that in question?”</p><p>“I am an apostate surrounded by Chantry forces in the middle of a mage rebellion,” the mage noted pointedly. Katriel considered this, and then nodded. He was right - she couldn’t imagine that the current unrest made Haven the most comfortable place for an elven mage right now.</p><p>“My personal history aside, that is part of why I came to talk to you,” Katriel continued.</p><p>Solas’s aura rippled. “Oh?”</p><p>“We will be going to the Hinterlands tomorrow to speak with a member of the Chantry, and we’ll probably have to quell some of the unrest in the area while we’re at it. I wasn’t sure if anyone had actually asked you yet, but I was hoping you’d join us.”</p><p>“Of course. I will be ready to depart at first light,” the mage said.</p><p>Katriel nodded, satisfied. He had proven himself a competent healer, and his barriers were useful in combat. “Good. I’ll talk to Cassandra and let her know,” she said. She moved to walk away, but the pangs in her stomach reminded her of another point of interest. She lingered, tilting her head consideringly. “There was one more thing, Solas.”</p><p>“Yes?”</p><p><br/>“Why do I want to eat you?”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>They met at the gates of Haven first thing in the morning. Cassandra and Solas were already waiting by the time Varric and Katriel joined them at the gates. Three horses and a compact pony were tethered to a hitching post nearby, ready and waiting to depart.</p><p>Much to Katriel’s surprise, Leliana had also come to bid them all farewell. When Katriel had asked if the spymaster would be accompanying them, Leliana had replied with a curt, "I will be more useful here." It had surprised Katriel, but not enough for her to press. Apparently Leliana wasn't a party member in Inquisition? Or maybe that was just another thing her presence had changed. Kat sighed. <br/><br/>The spymaster exchanged a few words with Cassandra before her attention turned towards Katriel.</p><p>“Still no word from Alastair or the Wardens. I’ll send a raven as soon as we’ve heard.”</p><p>The words were stilted, more professional than personal. Katriel nodded, arranging her scant few supplies in her saddlebags. “Send another to Alastair. Tell him that I want to see my dog, and if he doesn’t write back, then I’ll be forced to tell everyone in the Inquisition about a certain lamp post conversation.”</p><p>“Now I’m sort of hoping he doesn’t,” she heard Varric murmur behind her.</p><p>Leliana huffed. “Josie <em> also </em> wanted me to remind you to avoid provoking the local nobility. The rumors have already spread, and there will be no guessing what sort of reception you will receive. Focus on closing the rifts and recruiting agents to our cause. If you run into any trouble, send a raven, and we will have soldiers dispatched.”</p><p>“I can promise we won’t need them,” Katriel offered with a faint smirk.</p><p>Kat noted that the others had already mounted their horses. She turned back to nod at Leliana, who was still standing there, uncharacteristically at a loss for words. Silence stretched between them, thin and wavering. </p><p>“Be careful,” the spymaster finally blurted out. Katriel blinked, but Leliana turned on her heel and walked back towards the Chantry. </p><p>Kat shook her head, adjusted the comforting weight of the blindfold over her eyes, and mounted her horse. </p><p>The trip to the Hinterlands took about two days. They were fortunate not to encounter any enemies on the road - they passed only sparse and ragged groups of refugees and fleeing pilgrims, most of them desperately making their way towards Haven.</p><p>Kat was secretly overjoyed to be on a horse for the first time in over a decade. She had loved horses back in her human life on Earth - they had visited the local stable every weekend as a child, and she’d even ridden in competitions when she was older. Horseback riding had always been a guilty pleasure - and though it seemed so long ago now, that bright spark of girlish excitement was just the same. It made her feel a little bit more mortal, a bit more <em> human </em>. </p><p>The horses they’d been given weren’t anything special - farm animals, for the most part - but they were sufficient enough to suffice as beasts of burden. Katriel secretly named hers ‘Buttercup’ - and if the others ever heard her crooning bright encouragement to the beast as they traveled, they wisely kept their commentary to themselves.</p><p>Of course, her body wasn’t accustomed to riding any more; if it were not for her magic, she would have been just as sore and uncomfortable as Varric. As it was, she only smirked as the dwarf dismounted at the end of the day, ignoring the predictable tirade of curses and grumbling. A simple healing spell, followed by a low level warmth rune, soothed her protesting muscles in one fell swoop.</p><p>She was, of course, unable to help assemble the tents or gather firewood - since the dead wood didn’t glow in her spirit-sight - and so Katriel assumed the task of setting up protective wards around their campsites. The protective barriers required only a tiny flicker of power, their patterns intimately familiar from her time in the Fade. After a quick meal of travel rations and a bowl of rabbit stew - courtesy of Varric - Kat fell comfortably into the tent alongside Cassandra and slept readily enough to repeat the exercise the next morning.</p><p>After a bit of back and forth, Solas had agreed to keep his aura more tightly in check. In practice, that meant that he almost constantly sustained a barrier between his spirit and his skin; the result was that he burned far less brightly in Kat’s spirit-sight. Kat welcomed the difference, for it meant that he was not nearly as distracting as he had been. With the barrier, his spectral form wasn’t too much brighter than Cassandra’s.</p><p>Solas had theorized that since she had been so long confined to the Fade, her body had developed a sensitivity to spiritual energy. It made sense that she would experience a regular craving for magical supplementation, given the world’s disconnect from the Fade via the Veil. He, a powerful mage, exuded the sort of magical surplus her body craved. Katriel wasn't sure that was the whole entire truth, but it made enough sense that she gave his conjectural speculation a wave. </p><p>Sooner or later, Kat would need to supplement her ‘diet’ with some sort of spiritual equivalent. Solas noted - with some distaste - that eating a demon would probably suffice, but he also expressed that watching her consume one would doubtless distress their companions. Katriel sneered at that, but conceded the point.</p><p>Since it wasn’t an immediate problem, Katriel put it out of her thoughts. Without Solas glowing like a beacon, her hunger pangs vanished. </p><p>The third morning out of Haven, Katriel reigned Buttercup in at the crest of a small hill. Ahead of her, Cassandra did the same. The sound of battle sounded from further on, an omnipresent ring of steel on steel, punctuated by periodic screams, shrieks, and wails. Katriel kept a tight hold on her magic, her muscles twitching as her body fought to join in the fight. It had been over a week since she’d last seen battle, and she was getting twitchy. </p><p>“Sounds like the fighting is getting worse,” Varric observed. </p><p>“Come. Our scouting party should be just ahead,” Cassandra offered curtly. “They’ll be able to appraise us of the situation.”</p><p>Indeed, Scout Harding and her party were only a few more minutes up the road, their camp nestled in a small copse of trees just off the main path. Cassandra called out a greeting, and Katriel dismounted from her horse in order to talk to the dwarf, whose dull spiritual glow was all too telling.</p><p>“Warden Forsythe! I’ve heard the stories. Everyone has. We know what you did at the Breach - and during the Fifth Blight. It’s truly an honor to meet you, my lady.” </p><p>“I have never been a lady, Harding. Katriel will do just fine - or Warden, if you want to lean on formality.”</p><p>“Of course, Warden. I - all of us here - we’ll do whatever we can to help.”</p><p>Varric chuckled. “So you’re Harding, huh? Ever been to Kirkwall’s Hightown?”</p><p>Katriel frowned, sensing where this was going. “Varric,” she warned.</p><p>“Oh come on,” the rogue pleaded.</p><p>Cassandra made a disgusted noise, and Katriel turned back towards the scout. “What’s the situation here, Harding?” she asked.</p><p>The dwarf was all too eager to launch into an explanation. It seemed as though Horsemaster Dennet was a potential resource, if only they could cut through the fighting to verify that he was still alive. Securing his herds for the Inquisition would increase their reach - and their resources - tenfold. Katriel stroked Buttercup’s cheek with an idle talon, and the horse leaned into the touch. An army was only as good as their commander….but good horses certainly helped.</p><p>Harding also noted that Mother Giselle was at the Crossroads helping the wounded. The fighting had spread even to there; Harding hid it well, but her aura was rife with worry for the people. Katriel nodded. “I’ll help your scouts clear the roads,” she murmured absently. “I imagine we’ll be here for a few days, at the very least. If you and your scouts could hold onto our horses, we’ll get started.” </p><p>“Of course, Warden. Best of luck,” Harding replied.</p><p>She, Cassandra, Varric, and Solas continued on foot from there. Katriel felt an odd sort of pang at leaving Buttercup behind, but it would be foolish to subject the horses to the sort of fighting they were likely to run into. None of their animals were trained for battle, and were more likely to slow them down than actually speed their travels.</p><p>There was a certain sense of nostalgia inherent in travelling through the Hinterlands. The last time she had been here, the roads were peaceful - if not entirely safe. Now, the threat of darkspawn had been replaced with the threat of rogue templars and mad mages. Katriel found that she missed the view of the quaint countryside vista; her spirit-sight was much more stark and monochrome than the vibrant browns and greens she remembered. </p><p>Fortunately, she was easily distracted from the quiet pangs of personal disappointment. They didn’t have to wait long before they encountered their first group of enemies. Kat, following Cassandra’s lead, saw them before anyone else. Vibrant souls made of light gleamed in the distant dark. Kat put her hand on the warrior’s shoulder, pointing out the distant figures.  “Mages, I think,” she noted softly, seeing the brighter trails of magic left in their wake. She heard the others ready their weapons, and they proceeded cautiously forward.</p><p>There were five of them. None were even remotely close to Solas in brightness; Kat found herself disappointed. This wouldn’t be a challenge in the least.</p><p>One of the mages called out - they’d been spotted. Kat felt the cool trickle of Solas’s barrier slide over her skin even as she lunged forward. Behind her, she heard Solas trying to reason with the mages, to reassure them that they were not with the Templars, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. </p><p>One of the mages sent a blistering fireball in their direction; Kat flicked her fingers, and the fireball careened off to the side, exploding harmlessly behind her. She heard the sharp twang of Bianca and one of the mages fell, his life-light going dim. And then Kat jumped forward, aetheric energies crackling as she fade-stepped into the thick of the group.</p><p>Her body came alive, craving the violence that had been denied her during her week of inactivity. Her sword sliced through one of the mage’s thin robes, sinking deep into flesh before he had time to defend himself. The other three mages focused swiftly on her; Kat neatly sidestepped a fire rune, and used the momentum to slide the dead mage’s body off of her blade. A strangled gurgle was her only reward as her other arm came up, her dagger seamless and swift as it slid through a second mage’s throat. Both bodies hit the floor at exactly the same time.</p><p>She ignored the blood splatter that dotted her face as she called upon her magic, her muscles singing sweetly at the release of adrenaline. Cassandra had finally reached the fight, holding her shield high to deflect a desperate spirit bolt. Kat huffed a low laugh as she ducked a desperate swing of a mage’s staff, and leaped away in time for Solas to unleash a hail of spectral debris into the fray. One of the mages fell entirely to the onslaught, while Katriel squared off against the one that remained.</p><p>The battle was over in moments. She thrust her sword deep into the other woman’s gut, too swift to block or dodge. As the mage struggled to disengage, Kat sent a pulse of magic through her blade. Ice spread from the stab wound, and soon the mage’s entire body was frozen solid. As Kat ripped her sword free, the ice statue wobbled on its axis - and then fell, shattering into a million pieces as it hit the ground.</p><p>As Kat straightened, using a flare of magic to clean both her blades of blood, she heard Varric whistle low in his throat.</p><p>“Remind me not to piss you off, Sparky.”</p><p>Kat grinned. “I’m just getting started, Varric.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Just a heads up! I'll be using the next week or so to go through all of the chapters I've posted so far and doing any edits or revisions that need doing. This means I probably won't have a chapter up next week - but that I am absolutely open to feedback! Is there anything you'd like to see going forward? Any edits or inconsistencies you think would make the story more clear? Please let me know in the comments!</p><p>As always, thank you so much for reading. I really do appreciate every single comment, kudo, and bookmark! You guys are the reason I keep writing.</p>
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